Today we’d like to introduce you to Catherine Sang.
Catherine, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born and raised in El Paso, Texas. I recall that at a very young age, I would spend time shopping for bargains with my Aunt Carmen. We would spend time buying items in bulk, items such as toiletries, canned goods, clothes and over the counter medications like aspirin and Pepto Bismol. As a 10-year-old child, my Saturday activities were comprised of my waking up early to help my Grandpa Sang cook food in our giant wok, which was a remnant of the Chinese restaurant my grandfather once owned. For the most part, we made a lot of fried rice and fried chicken that we would store in plastic bags to allow for easy distribution. I would then help my aunt Carmen gather all of the items we had gathered during the week. We would then pile all of these things into my auntie’s car, which was as big as a boat, and head on over the border to Juarez, Mexico. My Grandma, Celia, would always come along, as it was her sister that we would be visiting. We would arrive at the tiny home of my great aunt, Andrea, where women and their children would be eagerly awaiting our arrival. We would distribute the items we had gathered during the week. After we would distribute the items, my aunt, who is a nurse, would tend to the minor medical needs of the people.
These early life experiences coupled with the morals and values my parents and other family members taught me, have led me to where I am today. As I was meeting with one of the social work interns, my Director called me to her office to inform me that some members of our community had donated some clothing and shoes for our Clients that reside in our shelter. I communicated this to the intern I was meeting with, and in a short moment, my Director’s office was full of interns ready to lend a hand. The interns proceeded to pile all of the wonderful donations into the trunk of my car. As I drove to our shelter, I thought of how special people can be. After listening to the stories of abuse that Clients share with me during their counseling sessions, the thought of people in our community caring about them enough to donate things to help them through this difficult moment in their lives brings about a sense of solace for me. People in the community are doing more than recycling their gently used items that they once enjoyed. This kind gesture of donating an item, and in some cases food, will raise our Client’s levels of self-esteem and hope. The concept of hope is something that is not easily engendered after a person has been through a traumatic event such as domestic violence or sexual assault. However, it is possible when working closely with victims of abuse to raise their levels of hope and self-esteem by demonstrating genuine concern and empathy for the person and the situation they have endured. When people see that people in their community, coupled with the assistance found within an agency, such as Denton County Friends of the Family, desires, and goals that once seemed impossible to reach, now seem more possible. Being a part of an agency where employees demonstrate genuine concern and care for the people they serve is one of the many reasons I enjoy being the in-house counselor at the Denton County Friends of the Family shelter. I hope to be here for many more years to come.
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc. – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
I would say that anything that has value and is worth attaining in life is not always easy to attain. I pursued and accomplished earning a Masters Degree in Social Work, a Law Degree and a Ph.D. in Family Therapy. Of all these things, I consider it a great honor to always be a Social Worker first. When I first came to the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, I found myself missing my family and my best friend very much. Talking to them over the phone was nice, but it was not the same feeling as seeing them face-to-face. I hung in there and experienced many new and wonderful things. I met individuals who I consider to be life-long mentors in both my career and personal life. Choosing to leave what I loved most has provided me with more options in life to provide the best things possible for those I love most. One of the best things to happen while working on my studies was meeting and marrying the love of my life.
When you ask me if things have been easy for me, it is not difficult to recall those moments in my childhood when I would play with the children I would visit in Juarez as the adults spoke of “grown-up stuff.” Being that we were kids, we would sometimes try to be nosy and listen in on what was being said. I recall that some of the women would say how hard it was to have enough money to buy food. The majority of these families lived in cardboard boxes in the mountains and some lived around the city dumpsite. My aunt Andrea took in one of these children and raised him as her own after his mother decided that he might have a better chance in life if he lived with her. His mother would continue to visit and she and my aunt continued to have a friendship that lasted a lifetime. This young boy was able to go to school and when he became an adult, he was able to care for my aunt Andrea and his biological mother. In my perspective, others have truly had bigger challenges in life than I have experienced. I am grateful for having a family and husband that have always supported me and I am truly grateful for having shared different life experiences with other people. I believe this has made all the difference.
So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Denton County Friends of the Family story. Tell us more about the business.
Denton County Friends of the Family is a nonprofit organization that provides compassionate, comprehensive services to those impacted by rape, sexual abuse, and domestic violence, while partnering with our community to promote safety, hope, healing, justice, and prevention.
We offer services like advocacy, legal aid, sheltering, transitional housing, counseling, play therapy, and education to our broader community.
In 2018, our agency served 4,139 adults and children by providing 86,534 services across our entire agency. We’ve also just recently opened our Hope Center in Savannah to provide more services to clients along the 380 corridors.
Contact Info:
- Website: dcfof.org
- Phone: 24-hour Crisis Line: 940-382-7273 or 800-572-4031
- Email: communityrelations@Dcfof.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dentoncountyfriendsofthefamily/
Image Credit:
Stephanie Honeycutt
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