Original article published in the Mower County Independent, Thursday, February 8, 2024. Reprinted with permission and gratitude.
By Gretchen Mensink Lovejoy
“Salt keeps good things good…and light (shines),” said George Beech, addressing the Spring Valley Kiwanis Club in late January, sharing the message of Matthew 5:13-16, “You are the salt of the earth and the light of the world,” as it relates to Salt & Light Partners, the Rochester organization of which he is executive director and a chaplain who offers spiritual and emotional ministry for first responders and others in distress.
The Salt & Light Partners website included the organization’s official mission statement that reads, “Our mission is to provide emotional and spiritual support through workplace chaplaincy in our community.” Beech concurred, “We provide counseling for emergency services workers,” adding that the purpose of making chaplains available to emergency services personnel and law enforcement officers is to help them process the events to which they have been called as part of their duty, occasions that are oftentimes accompanied by very difficult and traumatic circumstances. “People in law enforcement don’t trust people because people are lying to them all day, so we work to build trust and meet people where they’re at. And 93 percent of all firefighters are white and male, so the culture takes its own way.”
Beech listed that Salt & Light Partners was begun as a project that cooperates with the Rochester Police Department (RPD) three years ago, and that it now is represented through the Olmsted County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO). “Prior to that, I was a pastor, and prior to that, I was with the Department of Homeland Security, and before that, I was in the United States Army, serving in Korea and Germany…I met my wife on a rifle range. I grew up in Byron on a farm, and I went to the big city of Minneapolis to go to college. I tried to get back into the military after 9/11, but I had been out (long enough) that the Army didn’t let me. I was a civilian working with Homeland Security, and then my pastor asked me, ‘Do you want to work in a church?’ So I was a pastor. It’s not a usual career path. Then, the chief of police in Rochester asked me if I wanted to be a chaplain to all the department, and I realized I couldn’t do it all (being a pastor and a chaplain) so that’s when I started counseling all the first responders. It has grown because it was me and the police chief, and now we work with the Rochester Police Department, the ambulance service and the fire department, as well as the Winona Police Department and Visiting Angels. Chaplaincy is a ministry of presence.”
Beech then introduced chaplain Kathy Dudley, whom he said was among the very small number of chaplains that Salt & Light encompasses even as numerous have applied and interviewed to be part of the response teams, as the work requires particularly specific skills in navigating intense on-scene situations. Dudley explained how she became a Salt & Light chaplain through a chance meeting with Beech, and Beech commented that she was among the number of chaplains that give of their time to be present for people whose lives are in sudden upheaval, waking up at all hours to go out to a location with only a few details provided in advance and simply listen if someone needs to have another person hear them compassionately as or after they deal with processing or defusing a situation.
He remarked that police officers and firefighters have his personal cell phone number so that they may reach him at any time, even in the middle of the night, if they need someone to be with while managing emotions that may not have initially affected them. While Salt & Light is Christian-based, the executive director reiterated that chaplains assess a scene and determine how to approach the matter in the most sensitive ways possible, accepting that not everyone is a Christian and also that some wish to rely upon their faith to remain well or strive toward better understanding of what they’ve encountered or endured as individuals who have witnessed more than a person can internalize or convey to others. “We don’t proselytize…we don’t open that door, but if they open the door, we run through it…most of what we do is relationship-building.”
Beech’s Salt heals broken law enforcement officers who have brought work home with them because they’ve seen so much. “Why are there broken cops? Because families are broken – what happens at home comes to work, and what happens at work comes home, but not in a good way. We also have marriage counseling – it’s eight weeks at a time, and I take only one couple at a time. We help keep families together and help them act like they like each other. We have a ‘family readiness group’ like they have in the military, and we do date nights. All the people drop their kids off at the church with a gymnasium, then we take them (to an event or dinner). We ask them, ‘When was the last time you went on a date?’ We know how important the family is, so we have a date night. All of a sudden, we have spouses who know each other and each other’s phone numbers. But we’re giving people a venue to grow a relationship with their spouse by having date nights.”
The date nights and networking opportunities then grow the involved individuals to be a family of people on whom law enforcement and first responders and their spouses can rely if they need to converse about their lives’ concerns or joys. Additionally, in “relationship-building,” Salt & Light chaplains work to better acquaint themselves with new officers, and perhaps very importantly, they take time out to meet the children in neighborhoods where poverty or crime are prevalent and get out their pitching and catching gloves just to play ball for a while. Beech stated that chaplains also participate in community celebrations to make their presence known, some of which are sponsored by Salt & Light.
The question that went unasked by the Kiwanians but was addressed by the executive director was how the organization is funded, and he noted that “donations from churches, individuals and organizations” and wellness monies allotted to law enforcement help underwrite the costs of sending trained chaplains to emergencies, making way for Salt & Light’s mission to happen. As is the nature of the work, chaplaincy is unpredictable, and that means that Beech and his team are grateful to have the community’s support for their efforts, as it has allowed Salt & Light to expand its association from just the Rochester Police Department and OCSO to all Rochester area law enforcement, and to extend its radius to partner with the Winona emergency services.
Beech posited, “What are we going to do tomorrow? I started with the Rochester Police Department, and…if more work comes to us, we will respond.”
A Kiwanis member inquired of Beech, “How do you take care of your own chaplains?” The director answered, “Kathy or I…the rule is if you get called…the thing is you have to go talk with another chaplain. You have to download.” Another member wanted to know how many police departments have chaplains for the police, and he replied that “percentage wise, it’s really small…Chicago and New York have chaplains on staff, but small departments generally don’t.”
The meeting’s hour ended, and the Kiwanis graciously thanked Beech for his willingness to share about Salt & Light, presenting him with the club’s framed certificate of appreciation that is “suitable for hanging.”
For more information, log onto the Salt & Light Partners’ website at www.saltandlightpartners.org.
Courtesy of the Mower County Independent, 135 E Main St. LeRoy, MN 55951, (507)-324-5325
