Traumatized as a child, she ran away from home as a teenager and “pretended like I knew what I was doing with my life,” she said.
It's wasn't a good life.
She passed - barely - a series of state-mandated tests to regain custody, and in 1988 she and her children boarded a train bound for Whitefish. The family lived in St. Ignatius for a while, until Patterson's husband beat her so badly she had to be taken to Missoula in an ambulance, she said. She stayed at a battered women's shelter for a month or two, trying to pull the pieces of her life back together.
“I don't know how to describe me,” Patterson said. “I was mentally, physically, spiritually - just lost, hopeless. I was sick and tired of my life, but I had no idea how to change it.”
Then, during a visit to the local welfare office, she happened across a flier containing contact information for WORD, the Missoula-based nonprofit formally known as Women's Opportunity and Resource Development Inc. It said something about “changing lives.”
It was the small spark of hope she needed to light the way to a new life.
This Saturday, WORD will mark its 20th anniversary at a Glitterball event meant to celebrate the women, like Patterson, whose lives have helped make the organization one of Missoula's longest-running success stories.
Indeed, WORD has much to celebrate. It recently learned it will be receiving two large federal grants totaling nearly $4 million. One of those will provide $1 million to help boost a WORD program that empowers teen parents to continue their education and gain the skills necessary for financially secure futures.
The other, a five-year $2.9 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, will be used to support a program that permits parents to become actively engaged in their children's educations. The grant will allow WORD to work with parents across the state, including, for the first time, those living on all seven of Montana's Indian reservations.
As if that weren't cause enough for celebration, WORD is also finalizing plans to move from its current location on North Higgins Avenue to a new headquarters in the old Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation building. The new location will allow all of its services to be consolidated into one location, said Naomi Thornton, a program director for WORD.
“It's really a pretty exciting time right now for WORD,” Thornton said.
WORD has helped countless women like Patterson learn to lead better lives, but much remains to be done, said Cris Mulvey, the organization's executive director.
Mulvey became WORD's first executive director two years ago following a structural reorganization meant to unite the nonprofit around a more cohesive image. Despite its long history in the community and the myriad services it provides, few seem to know what WORD does, Mulvey said.
The nonprofit operates a plate of programs aimed at supporting women's economic independence, building stronger learning environments and supporting families. Basically, it works by listening to what locals need and using their suggestions to create innovative and evolving programs, Mulvey said.
She suspects its mission as a “feminist” organization distances some. The term can be controversial, even alienating, but WORD's brand of feminism, Mulvey points out, is about giving women the tools they need to lead fully self-determined lives. Men, too.
“A lot of people assume that because we're a feminist organization we work only with women and hire only women, but that's not the case at all,” she said.
One example is the organization's FUTURES program, which, according to a grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will receive $212,000 a year for the next five years to continue promoting responsible fatherhood.
FUTURES was started in 1989 as a way to address the needs of pregnant teens and young parents, and was always open to young men - but wasn't seeing much male participation, said Thornton, director of the program. So about eight years ago, the program hired an outreach coordinator, a man, to help fill the missing connection.
Responding to suggestions from young men, it also opened a drop-in resource center and organized various recreational activities to encourage young fathers to interact with their children.
Currently, the FUTURES staff works with more than 100 teen parents every year. Of those, 75 percent have already dropped out of school. More than half have been homeless at some point in their lives.
Missoula has a similar school-based program for pregnant and parenting teens. As most of the teens who hook up with FUTURES have dropped out of school already, the priority is to get them back into school, to prevent them from living a poverty lifestyle, Thornton said.
In addition to FUTURES, WORD oversees programs tackling a wide range of issues, from sexual assault and harassment to homelessness and job training. The Family BASICS program identified more than 300 homeless children and youth currently living in the area, and continues to provide tutoring for homeless students. It also offers housing, counseling, parenting education classes and links to other community resources.
For Patterson, the greatest thing WORD could offer was a caring hand that wouldn't leave her.
She began taking self-esteem classes and assertiveness training through WORD beginning in the late 1980s, and learned how to parent her four children, ages 2 through 10 at the time.
She learned economic self-sufficiency through the nonprofit's OPTIONS programs and eventually found a good job as a manager for a shuttle service. She even grew a sideline job selling favorite knickknacks at flea markets into a full-fledged business; in May 2005, she and a business partner opened Mystic Treasures on West Broadway.
She remarried. Through homeWORD, a former WORD program that's now an independent nonprofit, Patterson bought her own home. She remains involved in Alcoholics Anonymous, and now counts 15 clean and sober years.
She doesn't feel the urge to run from her problems anymore.
“Missoula has been the best thing I ever did,” Patterson said. “Before I came here, I traveled the country. I slept in caves, I slept in Hellgate Canyon. I was a runner, and WORD taught me I didn't have to run anymore.”
Reporter Tyler Christensen can be reached at 523-5215 or at tyler.christensen@lee.net
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