Meet Scott and Kathy
In our third week of shining a spotlight on St. Barnabas members, we discover two people who have created safe spaces for people to work, play and live with each other.
Scott Duennes and his wife, Marcia, have been attending St. Barnabas since December of 2021. They moved here from Cleveland to be closer to family and we are so grateful they found us.
Scott received a Bachelor of Arts in Communications from Cleveland State University and is a Vietnam Veteran, having served in the U.S. Navy. He spent his entire life in the grocery industry so when he was asked to join the team of Nature’s Bin and Cornucopia, Inc. he felt it was a perfect fit. After one year, the board asked him to become the Executive Director, and for the next 30 years he led this inspiring corporation.
Nature’s Bin was leading the industry in providing organic products in Ohio before it became available in major markets. But wait there’s more, Nature’s Bin also served as a training site for a unique and successful program that provided vocational training leading to employment for people with disabilities. Under Scott’s leadership, Cornucopia expanded its training programs to three additional locations to serve people with a wide range of disabilities. Including developmental disabilities, autism, mental illness, visual, speech and hearing impairments, and injuries resulting from accident or illness. Scott worked with county and state agencies to provide vocational services to more than 3,000 of these individuals.
Scott was challenged on several levels to “think outside the box.” During his tenure, Scott dedicated himself to running a well-oiled organization with a healthy dose of patience and good humor. Scott’s innovative outlook and ability helped to cultivate and nurture the community-based training programs and employment opportunities that Nature’s Bin provides to the individuals it serves. As the program grew, so did Scott’s notoriety. He was asked to travel around the US and speak about this business model to companies looking to copy his success. And no wonder, annual sales at Nature’s Bin exploded under his watch, with retail sales beginning at 300k and topping out at $6 million. Nature’s Bin also expanded from a 500 square foot location to a 6,000 square foot retail store.
Eventually the company purchased an empty McDonald’s which served as their corporate offices and catering facility. Scott loved being hands on with the employees and especially enjoyed the in-house pastry chef!
The next time you walk into Whole Foods, buy organic produce at your favorite grocery store or interact with a team member with disabilities, remember where it all began, with Scott Duennes and Nature’s Bin.
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Kathy Stockman and her husband Mark joined St. Barnabas in April of 2022. Active in our Becoming Beloved Community, Kathy has spent her life making sure that everyone feels welcome.
During a recent interview with Kathy, she shared her journey into the world of art.
“I am not an artist - I do not create art. But as an art historian and as a teacher, I create spaces that welcome people into artistic spaces."
"I grew up outside Cleveland in a lower middle-class family who would never go to an art museum. We did go to the natural history museum but that was because you could see dinosaurs. We would never go see art that you couldn’t touch."
"The very first time I went to an art museum I was 21 years old. It was LACMA -Los Angeles County Museum of Art. I went because I wanted to feel like I could be in an art museum. That even though I wasn’t brought up in the “class” of people who did that, I wanted to feel like I could.”
“I remember looking at a black and white photo exhibition. The people standing behind me in the gallery were talking about light, shadow, and color…but these were black and white photos, how did they see that? They talked about expressions and feeling, and I thought “What are they talking about?” I felt so defeated and I walked out of there thinking …maybe you can’t do this.”
“When I decided to go back to school, I learned that Art History was a degree. You mean I could study art and not have to make it? So, I majored in Art History at the University of Kansas and loved it. After graduation, I applied to seven Grad schools and decided I would go to the one that offered me money. The only one that made that offer was my number one pick – The University of Chicago. I got a scholarship and a stipend, so I didn’t even have to work while I studied Contemporary Art."
"I remember visiting the campus before I accepted and there were all of these gargoyles and big doors with serpent handles and behind those doors, walls of stained glass.
Do I really belong here?"
"As the semester progressed, I started to understand more things and professors from other universities contacted me because my focus was very specialized. I was studying the Puerto Rican diaspora and how it manifests itself in performance spaces, specifically porches as transitional spaces between inside and outside. I was drawn to this as my mother is Puerto Rican and came to the United States when she was thirteen."
"I was fascinated by spaces in New York City which are located between tenement buildings. They were once junk piles and weed lots that the city sold for nothing to Puerto Ricans in the 70’s and 80’s. These families would build casitas which were modeled after their childhood homes."
"Some were lived in but most of them were places that created spaces to garden and prepare traditional meals while teaching people to dance and sing the songs of the Puerto Rican culture. The houses would be decorated and many times, they would have a Puerto Rican flag and an American Flag representing the duality of their lives. I wanted to see them, to see the identity of these people in these little casitas."
"Architecturally, the porches on these homes represent a place of movement. You can hang out on it, it’s the space between, a welcoming place. Like the casita porch, art museums became my welcoming space."
"When I teach at the Cincinnati Art Museum, I try to create a space so people feel like they can go back – so that they don’t feel like the museum is not for them. This may sound cliché - but it really is seeing what people in my classes see that I haven’t seen. Welcoming me to art through their eyes. That’s my full circle."
"And that’s one of my reasons for joining St. Barnabas. To learn to be more welcoming – which is something I see and feel here. I land in this space very well."
Thank you, Kathy, for being a part of our St. Barnabas family, inviting us onto your porch and sharing your journey. Perhaps, like the porch on the casita, St. Barnabas is inviting us in to make music, learn the dance and share our stories as we come together.