CCA's Charmain Yun at WNHH FM.
Charmain Yun wondered where life would take her next. A voice came to her with the answer.
“I heard something in my heart,” Yun recalled. “The phrase was, ‘Do what’s in front of you.’ At the time what was in front of me were the kids on my stoop.”
The neighborhood kids ranged in age from 8 to 15. Her family would have them in for dinner or take them places for dinner.
“You know what?” she decided. “I’m going to turn this into a mentoring program.” She enlisted students she worked with as a campus minister at Yale to tutor and mentor the kids.
That happened 15 years ago. Her work with young people literally and figuratively in front of her in New Haven grew: In conjunction with the housing authority, she organized a coalition of “eight to nine” churches to have volunteers regularly tutor and organize basketball on a more formal basis with kids from public-housing developments in town.
Now Yun’s daytime front door has become Christian Community Action (CAA). This month she took over as executive director of the anti-poverty agency, which feeds and houses families in crisis, trains them for jobs (through its ARISE Center), works with them to advocate for policy changes.
Yun succeeds the Rev. Bonita Grubbs, who retired after 35 years building up CCA. Yun said in an interview Tuesday on WNHH FM’s “Dateline New Haven” program that she looks forward to continuing the programs and vision Grubbs built at the agency. She hopes to expand some of the programs and explore additional ways to tackle affordable housing, keep kids busy after school, offer legal services or therapy, promote healthful cooking and financial literacy. “I’m wondering if one day at ARISE center we can have a tagline that says, ‘From homelessness to homeownership,’” she said. One top policy goal is to address the “benefits cliff” that financially penalizes poor people who start earning just enough money to stop qualifying for public aid.
Back in 2014 Yun first encountered Grubbs while organizing the youth program.
“I met Rev. Bonita Grubbs today,” she recalled writing in her diary that day. “I want to be mentored by her.”
That didn’t happen back then. It started happening in 2021, when Yun went to work at CCA. She began as a “landlord engagement specialist” helping CCA clients navigate paperwork or bureaucratic obstacles to land apartments. She advanced to director of administration and planning, learning directly from Grubbs. Now she has the chance to take what she learned to lead the organization into a new era.
Click on the above video to watch the conversation with Christian Community Action Executive Director Charmain Yun on WNHH FM’s“Dateline New Haven.” Click here to subscribe or here to listen to other episodes of Dateline New Haven.
