Emily Ruth Perry, director of operations at Operation Inasmuch, sips her chai at a window table inside Winterbloom Tea. She greets Josh Choi, owner of the Hay Street tea shop, enthusiastically, making small talk, although she says they’re only acquainted. This is just who Emily Ruth is; kind, easy-going, with the ability to make friends with anyone, expressed her former colleagues at Veritas Church of Fayetteville.
“She’s one of those sticky people who brings folks together,” said Jacob Warren, lead pastor at the evangelical Veritas Church.
From a self-proclaimed happy-go-lucky girl growing up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to the bubbly, personable woman she’s described as now, Emily Ruth would appear to have maneuvered through life quite easily. But with every journey of growth, there is a moment, or a “soul hole” as Emily Ruth described it, that shapes a person into who they are.
Fayetteville’s sunshine girl
Emily Ruth said her life in Pittsburgh was a happy one surrounded by loving parents and three older siblings. She said her family described her in adolescence as an “Emily Bubble,” an orb of positivity she brought wherever she went. But growing into a wild child during her teen years, Emily Ruth said there were good times and there were bad times.
“It was the middle school and high school years that I remember feeling just so lost and sad,” said Emily Ruth.
She said she remembered this time of her life feeling heavy as she yearned to understand who she was as a person and discover her purpose in life. With the inevitable angst and loneliness that comes with being a teenager, she didn’t feel a strong connection with God like she had at a younger age. Because of this winding roller coaster of feelings, Emily Ruth said it was around this time her priorities in life began to shift.
Following in step with her older sister, Emily Ruth began falling into alcohol and drugs, bursting that “Emily Bubble” she had grown accustomed to. When she felt that hole in her soul — a void she tried desperately to fill with anything and everything — Emily Ruth said she’d turn to any form of overconsumption she could.
Her “wild child” phase, as she described it, continued through college, and after graduating from Kent State University in Ohio in 2007 studying communications, she took an internship in her hometown working in community development. But after a few years in the field, Emily Ruth felt a pull toward bettering her community in a different way, landing her back in school for education at Carlow University in 2009.
It wasn’t until the unexpected happened that her outlook on life completely changed. After years of unexplainable illnesses, Emily Ruth’s mother was diagnosed with a rare form of blood cancer called myelodysplasia, leading to her death in 2010. Emily described this time of her life as a huge part of her Christian testimony.
“I understand my mom is not Jesus, she is not the gospel. But the way that she lived her faith and was so sacrificial to other people gave me a glimpse of what it was all about,” Emily Ruth explained. She quickly realized change was crucial.
Following the death of her mother, Emily Ruth uprooted her life and everything she knew to take a position as a corps member for Teach for America, leading her to her new home in North Carolina in 2011.
In her hometown of Pittsburgh, Emily Ruth had always gone by Emily. But her move to the South struck her as a time for change.
“The reason I go by Emily Ruth is because my mother would say to me ‘Emily Ruth, my sunshine girl,’” she remembered affectionately. After moving to North Carolina, she decided to ask people to call her Emily Ruth in memory of her mother.
From teaching high school English in a high-stress position in Warrenton, North Carolina, to teaching 4th- and 5th-grade social studies and language arts at Elizabeth Cashwell Elementary in Cumberland County, that sunny attitude carried her the whole way through.
Inasmuch as you do
After getting married in 2014, Emily Ruth’s husband Trey, now a first sergeant in the Army, deployed. She said it was during this time that she really dove headfirst into church and ministry.
From an early age, Emily Ruth knew working in a heavily relational field was her calling. But after the birth of her oldest son Titus in 2017, she realized it was time for her to step away from teaching and focus more on her family, which in turn led her to a more permanent job at her church Veritas.
After three years of serving as the children’s director at Veritas, Emily Ruth’s role shifted to director of community life in 2019. Through this role, she was responsible for community groups. But there was more that she wanted to do.
“I had proposed to the elders if we could build out this ministry as a formal way of being for the city,” Emily Ruth said.
A partnership was born through Veritas with three key organizations: Hand of Hope, an organization dedicated to helping expecting mothers; Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit that helps families and communities build and improve sustainable homes; and Operation Inasmuch, a Christian nonprofit in Fayetteville that was founded by Sue Byrd and dedicates its services to the unhoused community.
Through these partnerships, Emily Ruth grew to know and love each organization and the work they did for the community. One organization in particular struck a chord in her.
In 2020, after the global Covid-19 pandemic swept our country, Operation Inasmuch was forced to move its free breakfast outside, a program that has been in existence since 2006, serving over 300,000 people a hot, fresh meal every weekday. It was then that Emily Ruth joined the ministry.
Craig Morrison, executive director at Operation Inasmuch, said he remembered her vividly.
“Right away you could tell she had a passion for it,” Craig said.
From serving breakfast to joining the Operation Inasmuch board of directors in 2021, Emily Ruth found a passion for community development that she hadn’t channeled since her internship back in 2007. While simultaneously serving as president on the Operation Inasmuch board and as director of community life at Veritas, Emily Ruth said she started to feel a strong pull toward helping the city of Fayetteville even more.
Since beginning her role at Operation Inasmuch as the director of operations in June 2024, Emily Ruth has completely transformed Operation Inasmuch’s Living Hope program, a program dedicated to assisting unhoused men make the changes necessary to thrive and grow on their own.
First created by Executive Director Craig Morrison in 2022 — and inspired by other programs such as Atlanta Mission and Charlotte Rescue Mission — the Living Hope program was born out of the observation that in order to get people out of poverty, supportive programming and housing was vital, Emily Ruth explained.
The Living Hope program follows three steps: Finding Rest, an emergency shelter where residents have nine days to outline their dedication to change; Choosing Change, a series of classes at Operation Inasmuch’s shelter, The Lodge, including spiritual development, life skills, and peer support; and finally Igniting Hope, which continues the spiritual development and life skills classes with an additional trauma counseling class with the program’s in-house mental health counselor.
After completing the program, participants begin to look for income opportunities, save their money, and move to Operation Inasmuch’s block of houses on Frink Street. From there, participants are encouraged to seek out housing opportunities on their own with the continued support of the Living Hope staff.
Emily Ruth is also the mind behind the Imago Dei — or Image of God — art project through the Living Hope program.
While working at Veritas Church in collaboration with Operation Inasmuch, Emily Ruth was inspired by Christian Prince, Living Hope residential manager, who was already doing art therapy with the men of the program. From this inspiration, Emily Ruth began searching for volunteer art instructors, expanding the learning possibilities for the Living Hope members.
“The concept [of Imago Dei] is that every human being no matter their gender, ethnicity, economics, lifestyle, no matter who they are, because they are a human being, they are made in the image of God,” Emily Ruth said.
Created in 2023, Imago Dei was started as an art-based program focused on providing therapy through art for the men who attend the Living Hope program. The program grew into an opportunity for the men to earn an income, creating the annual Imago Dei art expo. With locations all over downtown Fayetteville, such as Segra Stadium and The Sweet Palette, men from the Living Hope program have the opportunity to submit their work to be sold at the expo for a 50/50 profit split with Operation Inasmuch.
Craig said Emily Ruth’s progress in the few months she’s been at Operation Inasmuch is impressive.
“She’s brought in a ton of new volunteers, and we now have guitar therapy and music therapy,” Craig said. “Our financial classes have been taking off.”
Along with her dedication to the programs she oversees, Emily Ruth is also an advocate for mental health and trauma recovery for the men of the Living Hope program, and brought on a new mental health counselor. Emily Ruth describes Fayetteville as a resource desert, especially for those in need of mental health help.
“Part of the hope and prayer is that the growth of Operation Inasmuch as an organization can fill some of that gap,” Emily Ruth said.
Big things ahead
Emily Ruth said that although the Living Hope program is still her primary focus right now, she has big plans for the future of Operation Inasmuch. Emily Ruth said she dreams of bringing more of her neighborhood development experience to the community around Operation Inasmuch headquarters, 531 Hillsboro St., while focusing on empowering the residents themselves.
“The vision for that area of town is homegrown neighborhood revitalization,” Emily Ruth said. “What we don’t want to do is gentrification … What we do want to do is rehab vacant houses, bring in homeowners, and bring in opportunities for growth.”
From a community garden to parks for neighborhood children, and a vision for a food co-op, a type of food pantry where labor can be traded for groceries, Emily Ruth said her plans for the community around Operation Inasmuch are vast.
Sam Metheny, director of operations at Veritas Church, said this is only the beginning for Emily Ruth: “She is nowhere near done yet.”
Read CityView magazine’s “Giving” November 2024 e-edition here.
