Vida Medical Clinic and Support Services celebrated the opening of Vida Trinity House in Appleton on July 25, 2023, at an official housewarming and ribbon cutting ceremony. More than 500 people attended the ribbon cutting (and open house events that followed.) They celebrated, learned more, and supported the opening of Trinity House, the Fox Valley’s first and only free transitional residential housing program for pregnant women, new moms, and their young children. With renovations now complete and the ribbon cut on the campus, Vida is finalizing staffing and hopes to welcome its first residents into the home in early fall 2023.
Vida Trinity House Ribbon Cutting Remarks
Vida Executive Director Anne Tretinyak shared the following remarks to the hundreds of guests at the ribbon cutting on July 25th:
Good afternoon and welcome to Trinity House for our ribbon cutting. I would like to thank all of you for coming to celebrate this important milestone in Vida’s 40th year of serving families in the Fox Valley and beyond. We are so grateful to have so many friends here to help us celebrate. We have present and former staff members, executive directors, and volunteers, non-profit community partners, neighbors, and other new friends.
We have a lot to celebrate! For those of you who haven’t heard the incredible story about how our dream of running a transitional residential maternity home program became a reality, I’ll give you the short version.
Maternity housing wasn’t in the plan or the budget for 2023. The Vida Board had asked me to explore the possibility of expansion into Green Bay and as I was exploring space to lease, I came across an auction site. This property in the Town of Buchanan caught my eye because we had looked at it several years ago.
This property was operated as a senior assisted living facility. It was perfect for us then and now, but the timing two years ago was terrible because we had just wrapped up renovations and a capital campaign for our main center off of Hwy. 41 in Appleton. Unbeknownst to us, God put the dream and the property on hold for two years.
I presented the opportunity to purchase the property to the Vida Board, we prayed for a sign that the timing was right to expand our ministry, and we made an offer. The seller’s broker informed me that there was a non-negotiable auction fee and asked me if I wanted him to add it on to our offer price or subtract it from our offer. I was only authorized for $350,000, so I instructed him to subtract the fee. He sent me the paperwork to sign, and I could hardly believe the offer price in front of me, $333,333.33! Surely, God placed His stamp of Divine approval, as represented by the number 3 in the Bible, on this home, and affirmed this expansion of our ministry right down to the very penny.
That’s just the beginning of this incredible expansion story. As I said, this program expansion wasn’t in the plan or the budget for 2023, but when it’s God’s plan and His timing, He takes care of the details. We closed on our property at the end of March and launched our 333 (fundraising) Campaign at our annual banquet a few weeks later. We were hoping to use crowd funding to pay off the mortgage and move in debt-free. We thought if we could just get 333 of our closest friends to each raise $1,000, we could reach our goal. When the campaign end date arrived, we were 1/3 of the way to our goal! Out of the blue a family stepped forward with a 2-to-1 match to get us across the finish line.
I am so happy to announce to you all today that the mortgage on this property has been paid in full! The anonymous gift we received was intended to match and supersize the generosity of this community. I continue to be in awe of the amazing conclusion of the 333 Campaign!
The success of the 333 Campaign has been matched in grandeur by the success of the renovation campaign! The 333 Campaign was thrown together in the midst of closing on the property and banquet preparations. So as not to distract from the 333 Campaign, we decided to ask only a few donors for help with the renovation. Their response was immediate and generous … $100,000! The question of who would run this show was also answered very quickly. God sent His Holy Spirit to be the general contractor on this project. With God managing the details and the funds to begin renovation, we moved forward with replacing both roofs, the kitchen in the mother’s house behind me, replacing the flooring in both buildings, as well as purchasing plumbing fixtures, and other miscellaneous items needed to bring this property back to life.
Alongside of these donors came general contractors, electricians, framers, carpenters, plumbers, plasterers, painters, artists, cleaners, landscapers, tree farmers, interior decorators and furniture shops, concrete installers, and the long list goes on! The time, labor, and majority of materials for these projects was donated. Please take time to read the signs located throughout both buildings thanking our incredible project partners. And, please show them your appreciation by giving them a call the next time you need an electrician or a plumber, or perhaps a house full of bedroom sets, couches, custom closets, or an entirely new yard. Or what about when you need a gigantic Autumn Blaze Maple tree! Please remember that a friend of Vida should be your friend too!
I can assure you that not one individual or company wanted praise or recognition. Every volunteer has worked hard and selflessly contributed their time, talent, and treasure to inch this renovation project further towards completion. Together, we have made ourselves available to the prompting of the Holy Spirit to serve on tasks great and small with humility and great love for the women and babies who will call this place home. Together we have completed over a quarter of a million-dollar renovation without a plan and without a budget but with one heck of a good general contractor. Clearly, God assembled and equipped this team for His purposes. And, it has been the great blessing and tremendous pleasure to serve alongside of all these Godly men and women.
Finally, donations have continued to come in for programming. We have 1/3 of what we need to pay for the first year! We will continue to walk by faith and hire the staff we need to run an outstanding transitional residential maternity home. You’ll learn more about our program on the tour, but here are some of the highlights.
The mothers and their children will live in the house behind me, we will employ live in staff who will live in the building next door and rotate overnight call in the mother’s house, residents will be expected to have productive hours every day and week including household chores, education, employment, and accessing resources in the community including mentoring and parent education at Vida’s center on Association Drive across from the DMV. There will be numerous opportunities to volunteer and support residents including serving weekly family meals for residents. Please visit our website for additional information in the coming weeks. www.friendsofvida.org
In closing, I think God has another building project that He wants each and every one of us to be involved in. He wanted this home for His mother’s and His babies. He wants us to continue to work together to love and support them through whatever obstacles they need to overcome to create healthy, happy families. He wants them to know His great love for them and for us to affirm their inherent and unchanging value. Perhaps most importantly, He wants us to claim them as members of our loving Vida family, daughters and grandchildren all, cherished and beloved. Let’s welcome them into our Vida family and transform this building behind me into a house of hope and love!
