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Salvation Army Social Services Director Michelle Talbot believes God chose her to help the less fortunate in Auburn because of her life experience.
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Michelle Talbot is the mother of three daughters, a graduate of the Leadership Auburn program, involved in the community and a self-described rebel of the 1960s and ’70s. She also helps get the homeless off the streets and into rehabilitation programs as the social services director for the Salvation Army of Auburn.
Helping those less fortunate is something she never expected to find herself doing but considering her background, she can’t imagine doing anything else.
Growing up in Reno, NV, she never really knew her biological father and her stepdad had a violent temper.
“I wasn’t a happy camper as a kid growing up,” she said.
She
says her parents were too involved in their own partying lives to be
good parents, so she rebelled. At 17, Talbot left home and got married,
eventually having two daughters.
Her marriage wasn’t ideal. Drugs and alcohol abuse dominated the relationship.
Working as a hairdresser, she said it was one of her clients who helped change her life.
“At 28, I was working on a little old lady who kept inviting me to a bible study fellowship,” she recalled.
She agreed and said that day she turned her life around.
“I wasn’t raised in the church but I believe (things like this happen) when souls are hurting,” she said. “My attitude changed when I realized there was a God out there that loved me.”
She left her 10-year marriage to help get her life back on track.
“It wasn’t a healthy marriage (and) it wasn’t healthy for my daughters,” she said.
The single mother met another man, this one from Arkansas who was raised in the church, and moved to Truckee and then Grass Valley. She also had another daughter.
“I started looking for a part time job to help with finances,” she said.
She found that job at the Salvation Army of Auburn in 1990.
“I was doing social work. I had no idea. I knew nothing,” she said. “I was a humble homemaker but I could relate to those less fortunate since we struggled growing up.”
Talbot strived to be a good mother and provide a better upbringing for her daughters.
“I had inner strength to be a different mom,” she said.
That strength was put to the test in 1999 when her second husband left after 15 years of marriage.
“Those were good years (when we were married). He went to Arkansas and never came back,” she said. “It devastated us.”
Unable to afford to put food on the table and about to lose her home, she made the choice to work full time.
“It was tough that first year, working full time with two girls in high school,” she said.
She became a full-fledged director at the Salvation Army.
“My kids were raised in the Army,” she said. “They have been a part of fighting homelessness and volunteering.”
Looking back on her life, the petite blonde woman in her early 50s said her experiences help her relate to those she’s trying to help.
“I have empathy,” she said. “I can relate to being beaten by a stepfather, drug and alcohol issues (and) poverty. Was it God’s plan? ... My heart overflows for these people and I want to help them.”
With her children grown, she’s proud to say they are all drug and alcohol free. She now devotes her life to helping the less fortunate.
“It’s all intertwined between my life and work,” she said.
She works with a homeless outreach program and said the individuals they try to help are shocked that people care about them.
“I hang with some of the dirtiest, stinkiest, raunchiest people, but I love it,” she said. “It’s a lonely and degrading life so for us to come along (shows) that the Auburn community cares.”
She said sometimes the community, trying to help, actually works against the Salvation Army.
“People do more harm by giving money to panhandlers,” she said. “It makes it harder for us to do our work. What they are doing is killing them and we are trying to rescue them.”
While Talbot doesn’t sport a college degree, her experiences in life have led her to helping others.
“It’s what God does,” she said. “He does extraordinary work with ordinary individuals.”
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