‘We can work through it together’: Dunker walked in same shoes as clients she meets with at Ralls County NECAC

NEW LONDON, Mo. — When Stephanie Dunker, county coordinator at Ralls County Northeast Community Action Coordinator (NECAC), hears the stories of clients in need, she remembers once sitting on the other side of the desk.

When she was a young adult, Dunker fell asleep behind the wheel. Breaking her jaw in 14 places, she couldn’t care for herself.

“If my parents hadn’t been in my life to take care of me, I don’t know what I would have done,” Dunker said in a press release. “Some people don’t have that, and that’s when they need to know that they can come here. We will do our best to take care of their needs as a team, not just me — the whole community.”

NECAC Ralls County is in the heart of New London at 411 S. Main near the Ralls County Courthouse. It is one of 12 local service centers in each of the counties NECAC serves.

When Dunker started about two and a half years ago, she had to find an emotional balance.

“At first,” she recalled. “It was really difficult for me to deal with some of the things emotionally.”

She took home the hardships of her clients as a heavy weight on her back. She wanted to leave for the day with each person she saw in a better situation, but she knew she couldn’t because the right kind of help often takes time.

So she flipped her strategy.

“When someone walks through my door, I do every single thing I can do for that person during our time together,” Dunker said. “I try to be very connected to the community and other resources that allow me to help as fully as I can in that moment, so I know when I leave, there is nothing more I know of that I could have done for that person.”

Dunker has established herself in the community as someone who cares. She often finds more immediate help for her clients by reaching out to other organizations with whom she has established relationships.

She also has identified gaps in services and found ways to help fill them.

She discovered early-on in her career at NECAC that many community members were below the poverty line and in need of food. Only a month after she started, Dunker established the only daily food pantry in Ralls County.

“Starting the food pantry has probably been the biggest need I have identified so far. It’s not the food pantry in general but the daily openness of the food pantry,” Dunker said.

When people need immediate help with food, Dunker can help someone between service days at other food pantries or until they receive food stamp benefits or other resources.

Dunker recently helped a client who was living in his truck. He ate by fishing and setting traps to catch small game, and he boiled his drinking water from the Salt River. While many enjoy living off the land, relying on it as the only option for food made the man weary and hungry. Using food from the pantry, Dunker gave him items he could cook over a fire or didn’t have to be cooked. She also provided snacks and drinking water. Dunker said he knows he is welcome to return for more food anytime.

While the food pantry helped provide him with some immediate needs, Dunker got to work on long-term help. This is often a multifaceted coordination with other local agencies where Dunker has established connections.

Through a housing assessment, she pointed the man to places that could meet his needs better than she could at the time, including the Salvation Army’s cell phone partnership with US Cellular and the Crisis Stabilization Unit at Mark Twain Behavioral Health.

One challenge the man faced was a lack of transportation. Although he was living in his vehicle, it was not drivable, but Dunker worked with agencies electronically.

“It is soul sucking to those who have to live that way, and when they are able to come in here, then they can sit down and have some clean water and a meal,” she said. “I have even made meals for people in the air fryer. They will sit here or in the lobby wherever they are comfortable so they can just enjoy a hot meal.”

This man’s story is an example of the many Dunker is met with daily. Just after the July 4 holiday, Dunker already had three people present as homeless, and those nearing homelessness are growing.

“Sometimes I stop counting how many people are in a housing crisis because it’s just too many. They can’t make the ends come together. They are so frayed and tethered, the electrical tape is gone trying to put it back together,” she said.

Dunker said people in a housing crisis are either facing eviction or can no longer make their rent payment, and homelessness is usually close.

“So many are literally one check away from losing their housing or vehicle or both,” she said.

She said she often helps clients shift their perspectives from crisis thinking to long-term thinking in situations like this.

One person Dunker helped owned the home she lived in, but she was being evicted from the property it sat on. The client’s immediate thinking was to sell the mobile home for money to buy another place. Afraid that would create a homeless situation for the client and her children, Dunker helped her see things from a different perspective.

“She already owned a place and couldn’t be sure she would find another one. It’s small but it has heat and a refrigerator and a stove — everything she needed right now,” Dunker said. “So we discussed talking to landlords I know or possibly finding a place she can put the mobile home on for now.”

Through the experience after her car accident, Dunker knows the kind of obstacles people face when they are in a life-altering situation and try to get back on their feet. As medical bills piled up, Dunker lost both of her jobs and her insurance. Dunker said many of her clients face job loss.

“That happens regularly where people lose their jobs because of an accident or their child is sick, and they miss too much,” she said. “I went to unemployment and couldn’t get services because, while I was willing to work, they didn’t view me as being able to work since my mouth was still wired shut.”

With due dates pending, Dunker’s parents could not help her navigate the medical bills. With her mouth wired shut, she couldn’t call the bill collectors. Because she was over the age of 18, her parents were not allowed to speak on her behalf. Without speaking, she found ways to communicate and get back on her feet.

Now she helps others get to the same place.

Dunker often recognizes the frustration and hopelessness her clients often come in with. She sees each client as a unique person with a story and strives to help them find a happy ending.

“I can let them know that they don’t have to do that. They can give themselves a break and some grace, and it’s going to be OK,” she said. “We can work through it together.”

Dunker utilizes funds from the United Way of the Mark Twain Area to help community members in need at NECAC with utility payments, rental payments, deposits and more.

NECAC will receive $17,000 from United Way’s Be A Light campaign to assist people in need throughout Lewis, Marion, Monroe and Shelby counties. Community members and businesses are encouraged to partner with United Way to be a light to people who rely upon the programs United Way helps fund. People interested in financially supporting the efforts of United Way can give online at unitedwaymta.org or by mailing gifts to P.O. Box 81, Hannibal, Mo., 63401.