Early this year Tarrah Palm took over direction of ResourceWest, a community-based nonprofit serving families in crisis in the western suburbs. Since 2012, Palm has been living with her husband, Jayson, and their four kids, Ani, James, Sydney and Jovie, in Minnetonka, near where ResourceWest has its headquarters.
“Jayson and I have been working in the nonprofit sector for ages,” says Palm, who has a degree in social work. In 2009, their work took them to India, where she and Jayson spent three years working with Freedom Firm, a nonprofit aimed at protecting and rehabilitating minors sold into sex trafficking. “Working with those young women, you really come to recognize the value in each and every individual, as well as the power of a unified force of volunteers,” Palm says. She cites this experience as one that has profoundly impacted her, both personally and professionally, pushing her to pursue opportunities for community-oriented work after the family’s return to Minnesota.
This commitment to serving others led Palm to ResourceWest, where, before becoming the executive director, she was the program coordinator for the agency’s children and youth programs, including the school supply drive—perhaps ResourceWest’s biggest claim to fame. ResourceWest also organizes annual collections and distribution of children’s toys and winter wear, in cooperation with local businesses, schools, faith communities, civic groups and individual donors.
These highly successful programs are by no means the extent of ResourceWest’s impact on the community. Palm emphasizes that staff and volunteers must consider each and every client as an individual facing a unique set of challenges. “We don’t want to ‘kind of’ help. We want to really help,” she says. ResourceWest’s social services program provides case management; assistance with affordable housing and childcare, employment, and reliable transportation; and “bridge funds,” which is short-term financial assistance related to transportation to help working people stay afloat.
In 2015, ResourceWest’s social services program assisted over 1,400 adults in the west metro area who were struggling to meet their families’ basic needs of food, housing and access to health care.
As executive director since February, Palm hopes to see the agency continue to support to families in crisis. She also views the social service programs as an opportunity to foster understanding among community members of diverse backgrounds. “We live in a diverse community and that’s amazing, but some community members don’t feel that there’s room at the table for them,” Palm says. “Our clients and the volunteers are people who sometimes aren’t interacting a heck of a lot outside of [these encounters]. Now they’re able to get to know each other a little bit. That’s what I get most excited about.”
Collaborating with other charitable organizations is one of the major ways ResourceWest broadens its reach. Such collaborations are especially vital considering the small size of ResourceWest’s paid staff, which is only four strong, including its director. “We are small but mighty,” Palm says. “It’s never really a challenge to find volunteers,” she adds, “but we can always use more.”
To learn more about volunteering, contact Tarrah Palm at tarrah@resourcewest.org or 952.277.9341.
