Passion & Purpose: Winter 2024/2025
Musgrave foundation pays off mortgage for Women’s Medical Respite
The kitchen table is a special place at Women’s Medical Respite: meals are shared, crafts are made, puzzles pieced together — and, most importantly, healing bonds are formed.
In late October, the table served as the center for pumpkin carving, and WMR hosted a presentation for a transformative grant from the Jeannette L. Musgrave Foundation to pay off the mortgage on the home in Springfield that serves as WMR’s residential facility.
WMR provides a haven for unhoused women recovering from medical procedures. For these women, time, space and care — essential to recovery — are nearly impossible to find while unsheltered.
This fall, Darlene is one of the residents. She arrived at WMR in September after hip replacement surgery, uncertain where she would recover after losing her apartment just before her procedure. The house has been a place of peace for her, she says: “It doesn’t feel institutional. It feels like a home, and it’s filled with people who like to help each other.”
The house’s comforting atmosphere and sense of community play a crucial role in residents’ healing journeys. Carol Daniel, a board member and former clinical supervisor at Missouri State University’s School of Nursing, emphasizes the importance of the connections fostered here. “These women receive more than simply a bed and meals; it’s companionship and friendship,” she explains.
“These women receive more than simply a bed and meals; it's companionship and friendship.”
The quiet support within WMR empowers many women to break the cycle of homelessness after they leave. “You don’t have time to look at the big picture of your life when you’re struggling to just survive every day,” Daniel notes.
WMR’s journey began in 2014, inspired by senior nursing students at MSU under Daniel’s guidance. During clinical rotations, students saw the harsh reality faced by unsheltered women discharged from hospitals — often lacking food, clothing and access to their prescribed medications. “My students, understandably, were livid,” Daniel says.
Working with practicing nurses, the students channeled their frustration into the Women’s Medical Respite project. Originally, WMR was housed in a small apartment in the Ollis Building, and shortly after that, moved with The Kitchen Inc. to its location on Glenstone Avenue. However, the new location’s limited beds and accessibility issues made it clear that WMR needed to find new space.
In July 2023, WMR secured a four-bedroom house in a quiet Springfield neighborhood. With room for eight residents and improved accessibility, the charming home expands WMR’s capacity to serve Springfield’s unsheltered women.
The Musgrave Foundation has supported WMR since the beginning, starting with a $1,000 grant for the pilot project. But this year, the foundation’s impact reached new heights with a $172,175 grant, administered by the Community Foundation of the Ozarks in partnership with U.S. Bank Private Wealth Management, to pay off the new house’s mortgage. It was the largest of three grants comprising the Musgrave Foundation’s latest support for nonprofits’ capital projects.
The surprise relief the money brings will allow for future projects and renovations to be realized sooner, Daniel says. “When Bridget [Dierks, the CFO’s former vice president of community impact] called and told me about the grant, it was just tears.”
By Matthew Stewart · This essay is featured in the winter 2024/2025 edition of Passion & Purpose.
