Meet Bethanie Schmidt | CEO @Hug A Thug Program

We had the good fortune of connecting with Bethanie Schmidt and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Bethanie, can you share the most important lesson you’ve learned over the course of your career?
The most important lesson I’ve learned and still learning is that you can’t expect anything from anyone but if you don’t ask you can’t receive. (Well it’s a bit harder to anyways) As I go through all the intricacies of learning how to run a non profit I have found not to many friendly or caring faces. People are over worked under payed and burnt out so aLot of times they don’t want to help in other ways then what they are already providing but without modern day solutions we cant fix modern day problems.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Nothing is ever easy, everyday is. Learning process. What sets us apart from other non profit organization is that we are a community homeless lifestyle choices outreach program. We have a main focus on adults with addiction. What makes us unique is that we are not here to tell anyone they are wrong for how they chose to live their lives regardless of the repercussions, instead we are here to encourage, empower, and manifest improvement within their journey by building community values and intercommunication throughout our neighborhoods. Within doing this every person will have a chance to build friendships, accountability partners, and communities where they never thought they could. The challenges I’m facing are getting people to give just to give. I want to recreate the idea of friendship and rebuild the trust our communities once had for eachother. It not only takes a village but it takes a village on the same path and goal to create a successful integrative outcome. As a young entrepreneur I see a non invasive friendly real person oriented approach that can end homelessness caused by addiction and re integrate real people back into real life situations

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Top golf Downtown. Phx
Light rail rides

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
So far as I’m slowly building up I am still searching for that mentorship or guidance but we’re excited to see where it comes from in the future

Website: hugathugprogram.org

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100089278641648&mibextid=ZbWKwL

Other: https://givebutter.com/7cLjrs