Being a Voice for the Voiceless

Renee Tomatz, Hibbing, BCLP 1999                 
Director, Family Investment Center

Building Social Capital Across Cultures
What propels a person into community action varies from individual to individual. Take the Hibbing Community College’s Family Host Program, started by BCLP alum Renee Tomatz. One day after a meeting, she gave a ride to a young African-American student enrolled in classes on that campus. In expressing his gratitude, he mentioned that he was afraid to walk across town to his apartment because he might be “accused of something.” Renee’s first thought was, “This has got to change!”

It has been a common response over the course of Renee’s life as a proudly titled “social activist” in her hometown of Hibbing. Her response reflects key dimensions of leadership. She used her network of contacts to apply for and receive a Blandin Foundation Diversity Fellowship award. She organized a diversity team, recruiting people to generate ideas for educating the community about those “others.” This led to the “host family” concept which involved still more people. “The point of it was to get people talking to people — not black people or white people, but people with names and histories of their own talking to each other.” Renee speaks about these program goals with the same passion today as she felt in 2001 when she helped launch the initiative.

Identifying Needs, Creating Networks
Another aspect of Renee’s leadership is her commitment to speak out for those who lack voice in the community. She founded and directs the Family Investment Center (FIC), established by the Hibbing Housing Authority 11 years ago to help low-income residents set educational goals. What she discovered listening to the residents themselves was that their needs were more basic. To meet those needs, Renee developed networks among community resources and, in the course of that process, “became the voice for the voiceless” in the Hibbing area. FIC’s goal is to enable people to gain self-sufficiency. That means offering a variety of resources to equip them for success — employment and training skills, GED tutoring, after-school programs, crisis intervention, gently-used clothing, heating assistance, tutors, nutrition programs, and money management training.

Renee carries the stories of people associated with FIC wherever she goes and shares them whenever asked to speak. “I was the presenter at a meeting of the General Federation on Women’s Clubs-Hibbing and told stories of the people I meet through the Center, including the 15 children who join me every weekday morning for the Breakfast Club. That program caught their attention, and members of the Federation have been bringing food for the Club ever since.” It was more than the children’s stories that struck members. They recognized in Renee a person of passionate commitment to those often on the margins of community life, naming her their Woman of the Year. As a result, April 13, 2005 was proclaimed “Renee Tomatz Day” in Hibbing.

Storytelling: Framing Differences as Assets
Storytelling, for Renee, is more than recounting tender tales of people struggling against the odds. Stories are a vivid way to expand the community’s awareness of all its members and to stimulate people’s thinking about how to include more people in the community-building process. “The difference I want to make is having people look at their neighbors and the community in a new way so that there is greater acceptance for more people to step into active leadership. This is about bringing more people to the table.”

Hearing Renee’s own story and the passion with which she goes about her work, one might conclude that she is a flaming extrovert. Interestingly enough, despite her social activism and public presence, she is not. “I have always felt I needed to challenge myself, to be a risk-taker. I suppose it is easier because I take such pleasure watching people grow.”

Her use of the word “watch” has nothing to do with passive observation. She serves on numerous boards and committees whose work impacts the people she serves including, among others: the Northern St. Louis County Housing Coalition, the Hibbing Food Shelf Board, Minnesota Legal Services Planning Commission, and the Hibbing Community Collaborative Board. These involvements reflect how important building and sustaining relationships are for Renee so that the work of one becomes the concern of many. It is an example of the power of the BCLP definition of community leadership: “No one can do it for you, but you can’t do it alone.”

Expanding Cultural Competence
Renee believes that Hibbing needs to be ready as it moves into a new economic boom. “Community members are hopeful that their children will return. It is more likely that someone else’s children will come. They won’t look like us, so the question becomes how can we truly include them?”

Posing the question, Renee is ready with a response. She believes that groups in Hibbing are starting to change. Elders are creating space in organizations for new energy and new faces realizing that they can no longer carry the load and that it is time for new volunteers to create quality of life in the community. At the same time, there is a predictable fear of change over the loss of the familiar. Into that tension step leaders like Renee who can help frame new possibilities and demonstrate how a spirit of inclusiveness draws on the rich range of social capital being built up as community members work together.

Renee loves a challenge especially when it offers her the possibility of making some sort of difference on a small or grand scale. “I get satisfaction planting seeds [for action]. People are often afraid to take the first step even when what needs doing is important for the community. I like to nudge — persistently, gently, but no yanking. That’s something I learned at BCLP…how important first steps are.”