Henderson women fill mother-type roles in their community

Marianne Tanada thought she had no place left to turn when her parents disowned her after discovering she was several months pregnant.

She was 20 and unwed — an embarrassment for the family — but she knew she wanted to keep her baby despite her family’s resistance.

Her last hope was dialing the number of a woman she didn’t know.

“I was crying and scared because I was new to Vegas,” Tanada said. “I had nowhere else to turn.”

It was the middle of the night when Kathleen Miller, founder of Living Grace Home, picked up the phone. Tanada didn’t know it at the time, but the nonprofit she had stumbled on was a safe haven for pregnant teenagers and women up to 22 years old. Miller offered her a place to get back on her feet.

“And she rescued me,” Tanada said. “I was lucky to have her support.”

Each May, many women are honored by their children on Mother’s Day. But women such as Miller — motherly figures who look after various people in the community — receive accolades for the work they do.

Miller has been seen as a maternal figure for many of the girls who come through the Henderson-based Living Grace Home.

In 1999, she began researching the possibility of opening a maternity home for pregnant teenagers because Southern Nevada didn’t have one — despite Nevada being No. 1 nationally in teen pregnancy at the time.

Over the next few years, Miller worked to establish a place for these girls, many from broken families or the streets.

With only $239.66 in the bank account, the nonprofit opened in 2007.

“That first year, we operated on a wing and a prayer,” Miller said. “We had 22 girls the first year.”

Miller and a group of volunteers worked tirelessly to make sure the needs of the girls and their babies were met while the new moms got their lives back on track.

The nonprofit provides prenatal care and helps the girls get ready for motherhood. It also gives them opportunities to finish their education, whether it’s earning a high school diploma or obtaining a GED, and offers job preparation training.

Nine years and 220 babies later, Living Grace Home now operates two facilities in Henderson (the locations are kept private for the safety of the girls). The main facility is where girls new to the program stay during their pregnancies, while phase two, which opened in 2014, offers girls an extended stay — up to 22 months — if they need extra time getting on their feet after giving birth.

Miller feels like a proud mother watching the girls who have walked through the door make strides toward change.

“Every baby born is a success,” Miller said. “Every time a girl graduates high school, every time a girl becomes Miss Las Vegas, it’s a success. Their success is our success.”

Tanada, who walked through the door of Living Grace Home in 2009, went on to become Miss Las Vegas in 2015. It took her years to get back on track, but she knows it wouldn’t be possible without the help of Miller.

“She loved me like a mother,” she said. “They save lives here.”

After her daughter was born, Tanada made a vow she wouldn’t come back to Living Grace Home until she made something of herself.

“I didn’t want to waste what I was given through (Living Grace Home),” she said.

She worked three jobs trying to provide for her daughter and clawed her way to success. After a friend encouraged her to enter the pageant world, Tanada reluctantly decided to give it a try.

Though she didn’t feel she fit the pageant image, she decided to embark on the journey as a way to talk about Living Grace Home and the plight of single mothers.

“I wanted to use my voice to talk about what it’s like being a single mother and the issues we face,” she said.

Nearly six years after reaching out to Miller in a moment of desperation, Tanada reconnected with Miller last year as she started the pageant process.

Tanada is now on the board for Living Grace Home and comes back to the house regularly to meet the girls. In addition, seven years later, Tanada looks at her daughter and knows she made the right decision — she has since reconciled with her family.

Tanada is ready to give back and be a mentor to the next set of girls who come to Living Grace Home.

“I’ve been exactly where they are at,” she said. “I want to show them that they can become more.”

Woman is a kind of mother to nonprofit’s clients

Muriel Dufendach is the operations manager for Friends in the Desert, a Henderson-based nonprofit that offers warm meals for homeless or income-insecure people. The nonprofit has worked in the back room of St. Timothy’s Episcopal Church since 1999.

Dufendach and her husband became volunteers as the organization was forming.

“We were looking for a place that fit our beliefs,” she said. “This organization became my life.”

Monday through Saturday, Dufendach is in the back kitchen of St. Timothy’s, 43 Pacific Ave., making sure each meal provided by Friends in the Desert goes off without a hitch.

Donna Coleman, a board member with the nonprofit, said Dufendach volunteers with the organization close to 60 hours per week between making sure all the food is planned, the volunteers are scheduled and any other task it needs is taken care of.

“She probably spends about $1,000 of her own money each month to buy socks or other items,” Coleman said. “When I ask her about it, she says, ‘Well, I can’t take the money with me.’ ”

Beyond volunteering, she is there listening and giving advice to the many patrons who walk through the doors every evening.

But like many mothers, Dufendach is also no-nonsense at times and expects order when people come in — something she gets because of the respect she has earned from the patrons.

Though Dufendach has children of her own, she treats the men and women who come in for a nightly warm meal like extended family.

“Muriel is a mother to 300 people,” Coleman said.

To reach Henderson View reporter Michael Lyle, email mlyle@viewnews.com or call 702-387-5201. Find him on Twitter: @mjlyle.