Sarah Quarantotto: The Story of Miriam's House - Ending the Cycle of Homelessness
Sarah Quarantotto joined Miriam’s House in 2010, after working for a number of years in the Lynchburg area with local social service and mental health agencies.  She has immensely appreciated the opportunity to lead an organization with such a rich history of empowering families and individuals made vulnerable by homelessness.  She has a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a Master of Social Work from Virginia Commonwealth University.  When not working to end homelessness, Sarah is spending time with her husband, Jeremiah, and their two children exploring the outdoors and beauty of Central Virginia.
Interview Transcript
Hugh Ballou: Welcome to today’s Nonprofit Exchange. Today we are going to tell a story of a very successful nonprofit, and it happens to be in the city where I live, Lynchburg, Virginia. Russell, how is it out in Denver today?
Russell Dennis: Nice and toasty. Beautiful blue skies. It’s been clouding over very quickly in the afternoons. We are approaching three figures out here. It’s been good because my tan will start to pop.
Hugh: We are in the mountains of western central Virginia, and it is a lovely day. Overcast and threatening to rain. We have the old mountains here, the ones that have been rained on and smoothed off. You have those young mountains. We have been on an adventure interviewing some really interesting people. I just met Sarah Quarantotto. Did I say that right?
Sarah Quarantotto: Yeah. Yep.
Hugh: Just met Sarah last week at my rotary meeting, where she was presenting. I was really impressed with the story about this nonprofit she is the executive director for. I asked her to come on and tell the story from the leader standpoint. Where was the organization? Where is it now? Sarah, tell us a little bit about yourself and what your passion was for wanting to do this job.
Sarah: My name is Sarah Quarantotto, and I am the executive director of Miriam’s House. I have been a social worker here in central Virginia for about 15 years. After finishing my Master’s in Social Work, I came to work at Miriam’s House as the Clinical Director. I really had the opportunity to be on the front lines working with homeless individuals. Two years after that, I was offered the Executive Director job, which I was really honored to accept.
Hugh: Tell us about why you accepted it.
Sarah: When you are working in an organization with such an incredible impact, the leadership really matters. When there was a change in leadership and an opportunity to become that leader, I thought it was a really great opportunity to continue the good work of Miriam’s House, but also to grow and expand that work. I was really happy to be able to have that opportunity.
Hugh: Our audience for this podcast and this video is typically people like you, people sitting in the chair of leading an organization. It might be a ministry. It might be a community-based charity, a membership-based charity, a cause-based charity. They are all kinds of different operations. The anchor to it is leaders make things happen.
I am going to ask you a couple of questions. You have a background in social work and you are doing leadership. Those are different skillsets. Before you do the question, talk about the impact. You mentioned the impact on the homeless. Where was this organization when you started? Where is it now? You gave some statistics last week in your presentation that were really important.
Sarah: Miriam’s House, when I first came here, we operated a transitional housing program. For 20 years, we had a program on site that provided housing for 11 households at a time. The great thing about homeless response nationally is that the concept of programs responding to homelessness have expanded beyond facilities, beyond four walls of a facility, and really into the community. By looking at different models of intervention, we have been able to grow astronomically. Back in 20