UPDATE (10/29/24): Nexus has raised $277,771 for the National Recovery Month #TattooChallenge, leading Heather Ormand to fulfill her pledge.
In honor of North Texas Giving Day and September’s National Recovery Month, Heather Ormand, the CEO of nonprofit Nexus Family Recovery Center in Dallas, made a pledge of her own: to get a permanent Nexus logo tattoo on her forearm if the center reaches its goal of raising $150,000.
The nonprofit’s mission centers around creating a safe space for women in recovery from substance use disorders. It works to help them reclaim their independence and their dignity.
The tattoo idea came about as the staff brainstormed ideas for this season of giving. “They wanted to do something challenging, yet fun and exciting, and questioned, ‘How can we zhuzh it a little bit?’” Ormand says. Last year the bar was set when the executive team was asked to dress in sumo wrestler outfits and wrestle each other when Nexus achieved its goal.
The development and marketing team flat out asked Ormand what she would be willing to do this year. She told them, “I don’t have a lot of ego in this. I will do pretty much anything you guys ask me,” then suggested a tattoo. They had already planned on having temporary tattoos made as part of their Flex for Nexus fundraising promotion.
Tattoos make sense for Nexus. “It’s an outward reminder of how far you’ve come,” Ormand says. “People get their recovery dates or their sobriety dates tattooed really often, or they’ll do the triangle in the circle, the AA symbol,” Ormand says. “Tattoos are a pretty big part of a lot of people’s recovery journeys.”
She would know. “I am a woman in long-term recovery myself. My sobriety date is January 11, 2011,” Ormand says. “When I got sober, I just felt that God’s purpose for me was different.”
She went back to school to get a master’s in counseling, and later became the chief financial officer, then chief operating officer, of the Dallas Children’s Advocacy Center (DCAC) in 2013. During her tenure, she saw the budget, staff size and impact on the community double, and married and had two children of her own. As the president of DCAC was retiring, he asked Ormand about her plans for the future, then helped her move into her dream job as the CEO at Nexus.
“I really feel like the reason I have a family is because I got sober,” Ormand says. “With the way I was living, and the way I was putting myself through my alcoholism, I wouldn’t have been able to have kids if I had stayed active. I knew that. This was my way of giving back something that had been given to me.”
Nexus creates a community that not only includes the women themselves, but their families as well. There’s intensive outpatient treatment, plus a residential treatment program that includes pregnant and parenting women with kids up to 12 years old. There’s even a fully licensed Child Development Center onsite. Clients live right on campus until they complete treatment. Then they transition into stable housing for outpatient recovery, which includes recovery support services with certified peer specialists, some of whom are Nexus alumni with lived experience they can share.
Through the Nexus Generations program, moms participate in parenting classes, support groups and have a little fun along the way through a group they’ve dubbed the Mom Squad. They bond during trips to Dallas favorites such as the zoo, the Arboretum, White Rock Lake and local coffee shops, or even over a quick cherry limeade stop at Sonic. Then there are the baby showers, a double celebration of motherhood and recovery.
Emily Wickard, who founded Avara, a wildly successful online and brick-and-mortar women’s clothing and accessories boutique, pledged to help Nexus reach its goal with a $20,000 match donation. Last year, Inc. Magazine named Avara the fastest-growing e-commerce business in the country. Not bad for a company Wickard started at her kitchen table in Highland Park shortly after becoming sober herself.
“I have eight years sober. I actually got sober right before I started Avara. So women’s recovery is a big portion of our philanthropy,” Wickard says. She found out about Nexus through her sponsor, who brought Wickard to lead a women’s meeting there just a short time into her sobriety. “I had never heard about Nexus before, but I went, and I shared my story with the women there and heard their stories.” Wickard says. “It’s such a unique organization that allows women to bring their children with them to treatment. Once I figured out what they’re doing, I was like, ‘I’m all in,’ and I have been ever since.”
Of course, Ormand and her staff are all in, too. “We want for these women to be able to feel about themselves the way we feel about them. That they are deserving, that they are complete and wonderful women and mothers. That they deserve all the amazing things that life has to offer them,” she says. “So many of them feel shame and guilt and remorse. And I know that, because I felt that, but I just want for them to believe in themselves as much as we do.”
So far, Nexus has raised $117,000 toward its goal, with just $33,000 left before Ormand gets her Nexus logo tattoo. Find out more and donate on their website — and be sure to check back here to see Heather’s tattoo once they’ve surpassed their goal.