Today we’d like to introduce you to Alyssa Grass.
Hi Alyssa, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
The road that led me to where I am today was jagged, chaotic, and often nearly fatal. I’m new here to Baltimore on a mission opening the MIRA Women’s Home. We’re part of a larger recovery community (Teen Challenge) that helps women rebuild their lives after addiction, sex trafficking and trauma. It’s a role that’s deeply personal for me—because not long ago, I was the one walking through the door with nothing left to lose.
I entered the Teen Challenge program in November 2022, after years of surviving on the streets of Southern California, lost in a devastating cycle of meth and fentanyl addiction. Homelessness wasn’t a phase—it was my reality. Most nights, I was surrounded by traffickers, gang members, and people just as desperate as I was. It was a world where trust could get you killed and vulnerability was a luxury you couldn’t afford.
I’d been born into a life tainted by instability. I grew up in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where addiction was generational and trauma ran deep. With an incarcerated parent and drug trafficking caregivers I learned to operate in survival mode early in life. In adulthood I bounced between mental health institutions, jail cells, treatment programs, and prescribed medications—none of which ever got to the root of the pain. I tried everything, but nothing stuck. I couldn’t stay clean long enough to imagine something better or to be a mother to my children.
Everything changed when I walked into Teen Challenge. For the first time, I wasn’t just detoxing—I was learning how to live. I committed to the full-year recovery program, followed by a four-month Servant Leadership Apprenticeship. After that, I graduated from their Ministry Institute with a one-year credential. It wasn’t easy. It required confronting everything I had spent years trying to numb. But it worked. Slowly, the shame lifted. The survival mode faded. I found clarity, purpose, and even joy.
Today, I get to walk alongside other women as they face their own mountains. I get to say, “I’ve been there,” and mean it. And I get to witness transformation—the kind that no longer surprises me, but still moves me every time. The MIRA Women’s Home isn’t just a recovery center. It’s a place where women can learn to feel human again. Where the vicious cycles end and healing begins.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
When I was first offered the chance to help open this women’s recovery home in Baltimore, I didn’t jump at it. In fact, I almost said no.
At that point in my life, I had finally found stability—the kind I had never really known before. For the first time, I felt safe. Seen. Grounded. The thought of leaving all of that behind to start over across the country, with a team of people I barely knew, was terrifying. It wasn’t just a big move—it felt like jumping off a cliff and hoping something would catch me.
But something inside me wouldn’t let it go. I flew out for a short visit just to see what this place was about. And something shifted. I met the team, and instantly I could feel the heartbeat behind their work—boots on the ground, real impact, real people. I saw how deeply they were already embedded in the community, reaching at-risk youth, meeting people right where they were. It was gritty and raw and deeply needed.
Then we drove through the parts of the city that don’t make it into tourist guides. Blocks of boarded-up homes. Generations of poverty and pain packed into crumbling neighborhoods. And it broke me. Not in a metaphorical sense—my chest actually ached. Because I knew that if I had hit bottom here instead of in California, I wouldn’t have had a place like Teen Challenge to walk into. There just wasn’t anything like it for women here.
That realization did something to me. I couldn’t unsee the need. I couldn’t unfeel the responsibility. It was like someone handed me the burden and whispered, This is yours now. So I said yes.
The truth is, I have no formal education in nonprofit management. No business degree. No roadmap. Just a lifetime of surviving trauma, and a few sacred years learning how to heal from it. And now I’m here—making calls I never imagined I’d have the courage to make, asking for funding, chasing down partnerships, praying something sticks. It’s hard. Some days I feel like I’m completely out of my depth. There are moments when discouragement creeps in like a fog I can’t shake.
But then something small breaks through—a partnership approval, a donor meeting, a stranger offering support—and hope returns, even if only for a moment. And that’s enough to keep going.
This work matters. These women matter. And I have to believe that if we keep showing up, if we keep pushing forward, the right doors will open. Because this is more than a recovery home—it’s a lifeline for women like me who never thought they’d make it out alive.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Being the first staff member and Student Care Coordinator at our new women’s recovery home in Baltimore has stretched me in more ways than I can count. It’s not just a title—it’s a million little roles woven into one, each one deeply personal, because I know what it’s like to be on the other side of this work. I’m so grateful for the leadership above me that is helping to train me, leading by example day in and day out.
Most days, I’ll be wearing a dozen hats working with my team of staff that will be doing the same. I’ll help manage each woman’s care, walking with them through everything from emotional and physical needs to family crises, keeping up with court cases. I connect with outside communities, referred empowering female volunteers, hospital trips for emergencies—whoever we need on board to make sure our women don’t fall through the cracks. I’ll be there when emergencies hit, when someone is considering going back out to relapse, or just needs someone to sit with them and remind them they’re not alone.
I’ll also teach. Not just recovery tools—but the deeper spiritual truth that changed my own life: that healing doesn’t come just from willpower, but from something greater. We talk about forgiveness, about trauma, about family restoration and what it means to grow in character after years of just trying to survive.
I advocate for them. I’ll communicate with staff, families—translating chaos into clarity, pain into purpose. I show up for the hard conversations and the hopeful ones. I work to create a space where each woman feels seen, supported, and safe enough to start dreaming again.
It takes a lot—empathy, patience, resilience, and an ability to shift from crisis mode to calm at a moment’s notice. But it’s a privilege. These women are trusting me with their stories, and I don’t take that lightly.
On top of that, I’m hoping for donors to help bring something really special to our home—a creative workshop space right on our property. I’ve always had a passion for making things with my hands—jewelry, art, restoring old furniture—and I want to share that with the women here. I want them to experience the beauty of creating something out of what looks broken. To take pieces that seem ruined and make them into something meaningful—something beautiful. Just like they’re doing with their lives.
My dream is to teach them these skills, help them create pieces they can be proud of, and sell them to help fund our home. But more than that, I want them to know what it feels like to build something with their own hands—and realize, if it was possible for me, it’s possible for them.
If they can learn to create something beautiful out of scraps and pain, they’ll start to believe they can do the same with their own story. And that’s what this work is all about.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
My happiness is in joining jaded people of this fallen world come together and make a work of art out of all the brokenness. My happiness is when people choose to courageously forgive the worst, unthinkable betrayals and experience the beautiful freedom that follows. My happiness is when people take responsibility for things they don’t have to take responsibility for, especially when it costs them something to do it. My happiness is found when I’m challenged to become more than what I was or presently am for the greater good of all. My happiness is found in living a life where I’m daily denying my own comforts and pleasures in order to better serve the needs of the people and the world around me. My happiness is found in becoming the mother, daughter, sister and woman that I never considered to be possible.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.teenchallengebaltimore.com/home/mira/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ATCBMira
- LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/alyssa-grass-b225ba361
