About Magdalene Omaha
Who We Are
We are a community of survivors of sexual violence and allies who are committed to Magdalene Omaha’s mission, approach, and 5 organizational values:
Survivor-Centered
Community
Love
Resilience
Growth
Magdalene Omaha provides equal opportunities to all employees, volunteers, program participants, and applicants without regard to race, color, ancestry, national origin, religion, gender, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, marital status, parental status, pregnancy or pregnancy-related conditions, medical condition, disability, results of genetic testing, age, service in the military, or any other characteristic protected by law.
Come join us on the journey!
Meet Our Team
Board of Directors
President Bryan Peterson Vice President Kay Doyle
Treasurer Grace Newton Secretary Maureen O’Connor
Elizabeth Easton Lindsay Banks-Cunningham
Staff
Audrey Durand, Survivor Success Coordinator
Barb Corey, Senior Manager, Workforce Development
Dorris Walker-Taylor, Senior Ambassador
Kelsey Ripperger, Community Coordinator
Mary Sivels, Peer Support Specialist
Teresa Houser, Founder & CEO
Tesa Miller, Director of Survivor Services
An Issue Close to Home: Omaha’s Sex Trafficking Problem
As noted in “Nebraska’s Commercial Sex Market,” published by the Women’s Fund of Omaha in 2017:
On average each month, 900 unique individuals are sold for sex in the state of Nebraska.
On average each month, 675 of those individuals are sold in the Omaha metropolitan area.
Each of those individuals may be sold multiple times a day.
In the majority of these transactions, force, fraud, or coercion is involved (meeting the legal definition of trafficking).
Our Roots:
Thistle Farms
Our model has nearly 30 years of success behind it.
Magdalene Omaha initially modeled our programs after Thistle Farms in Nashville, the original Magdalene residential community and survivor-led small business founded by Becca Stevens in 1997.
Today, Thistle Farms is the largest survivor-run social enterprise in the United States, and their model has spread to over 50 communities around the world.
Our History in Omaha
2016
Magdalene Omaha officially founded & community engagement activities began - always geared to amplifying the survivor’s voice.
2017
Residence purchased, renovated, & first resident welcomed home.
2018
Thistle Lights, our initial job training program, officially opened on Small Business Saturday.
2019
New Beginnings Campus launched to expand our programming to all survivors community-wide, including offering a weekly community dinner for survivors.
2020
Purchased Voila!, the award-winning flower shop, creating Voila! Magdalene Blooms to expand the job training experiences available as part of our workforce development activities. After three wonderful years of transitioning small business operations into a successful job training program, we gifted Voila! to the Heart Ministry Center’s “Fresh Start” program in 2023 as we instead created new career planning and support initiatives tailored to each survivor’s personal career goals.
2021
Expanded services at our New Beginnings Campus, including creation of Tamar’s Pantry, our personal items pantry that supports individual survivors & other nonprofits assisting survivors.
2022
Undertook an intensive evaluation, analysis, and restructuring of our programs called “Becoming Who We Are,” which allowed us to both streamline and increase the services and support we offer survivors.
2023
Opened The Magdalene Omaha Community Center, located at 930 S. 48th Street.
The vision for Magdalene Omaha began in 2014. We spent a year learning about Omaha’s growing sex trafficking problem and the services already being provided. In 2015, we studied the Magdalene residential recovery model in depth and consulted with survivors and other community leaders in Omaha to determine whether this would be a good fit here.
After receiving overwhelming enthusiasm to move forward, in 2016 we officially founded Magdalene Omaha. Since then, thanks to the generous support of this community, we continue to evaluate, adapt, and grow our programming to best meet the evolving needs of local survivors.