New executive director at MorningStar Mission in Joliet feels called to serve

While walking down the hall at MorningStar Mission in Joliet one day, Kevin Watson turned the corner and saw an older man cleaning out a garbage can.

This wasn’t the man’s regular job. And this man, who was staying at the mission, was grinning from ear to ear, said Watson, assistant executive director at the mission.

“He looked at me and said, ‘Kevin, I am so blessed to have this opportunity and be here,’ ” Watson said. “Here was a guy who had his priorities right and really gets it.”

Watson will become executive director of MorningStar Mission on Jan. 1. He will replace Sandra L. Perzee, who will serve MorningStar Mission as its director emeritus. MorningStar mission began in 1901 and provides many Christian-centered programs to people in need, according to its website.

In the 15 years since Watson came to the mission, he’s served as vocational coordinator, the men’s program director, the senior program director and, for the past three years, the mission’s assistant director.

Both Perzee and Watson came from a family of givers. Both stepped into their executive director roles sooner than they’d planned.

“I’ve been here the last 22 years,” Perzee said. “That I’ve been blessed with staff that He’s [God] provided me with to do the frontline work is truly remarkable. It’s easy for me to sit in an office and make decisions. It’s those people who are on the front line that sit there and listen to the stories and actually meet the people firsthand, face to face, and do the hard things for the people we serve. They are the best team anybody could have.”

Perzee’s sister was Marilyn Farmer, MorningStar Mission’s executive director from 1997 to 2017, Perzee said. Farmer was in the fourth year of a five-year plan to move Perzee into the executive director role after Farmer died Dec. 14, 2017.

Both sisters were members of the mission’s board of directors in the early 1990s. Their father was on the board from 1980 to 1985, Perzee said.

“Honestly, in 1999, if you would have said to me, ‘Sandi, you’re going to be working at that mission,’ I would have laughed at you,” Perzee said. “I truly believe God rules your life and He had this planned all along.”

Perzee began working for MorningStar Mission in June of 2000 because Farmer couldn’t “find someone to do the books,” Perzee said.

“She said to me, ‘Why don’t you come and for work the mission?’ That was April 2000,” Perzee said. “I laughed and said, ‘Oh, you can’t afford me.’ ”

But then Perzee’s employer went through a “corporate take-over,” Perzee said. So she told Farmer, “I think I’ll work for the mission.”

“I never looked back,” Perzee said.

She has her parents to thank.

‘They were always bringing people home from the mission’

Perzee said her parents were immersed in a mission in Gary, Indiana, during her and Farmer’s childhood, until the family moved to Joliet in 1975. Their mother ran the mission’s thrift store.

“She was the only working mother of any of our friends,” Perzee. “She was never home during the day, so if we got sick or whatever, one of our friends’ mothers would have to come get us.”

Her parents truly lived the life of ministry.

“They were always bringing people home from the mission,” Perzee said. “Our house was always open. And that’s just how our life was. If they found strangers on the road and they needed a place to stay overnight, they’d bring people home. That’s how we grew up. We’re talking about the ‘60s and ‘70s. It was a different lifestyle back then. People trusted people. It was a different time.”

No one ever took advantage? Yes, Perzee said. Once.

“But it never stopped them from continuing to do that,” Perzee said. “We believed that Jesus told us to do unto others, to do to the least of these. That’s the principle we always lived by. It’s one of the things I ask the staff here. Whenever someone comes to our door, I want them to be the hands and feet of Jesus. So whatever we can do for them, that’s what I want the staff to do. Show them love, however we can do that. ... That’s the way my parents taught us to live.”

In her new role as director emeritus, Perzee will develop the mission’s property on Briggs Street, the site of the former Smith Family YMCA. MorningStar Mission bought the property from the Great Joliet Area YMCA in 2021 for a little more than $3 million.

Perzee, who is raising a 19-year-old grandnephew, will live and work at the mission’s Hope Manor, so she will “not be taking up office space,” which she calls “the best of both worlds.”

Connecting with the individual

Like Perzee, Watson accepted a position at the mission when he was between jobs. Over time, Watson said he realized MorningStar Mission was “where I’m supposed to be.”

“When I first started here, I had my own stereotypical views of what a homeless person looked like – and why they’re homeless – and sort of blame them for it, because they made their choices,” Watson said. “Maybe that’s the case with some, but after meeting them and getting to know them, most of them just fell on bad luck, and that could have been me.”

Watson said he’s learned from Farmer, Perzee and even his grandmother, who drove a school bus during the Depression.

“If kids didn’t have a lunch, my grandmother made sure they had a lunch,” Watson said.

Even when he’s executive director, Watson said he never wants to “stop being connected with the individual.”

“I still want to spend time with them, get to know them and be part of their lives,” Watson said.

For information about MorningStar Mission, visit morningstarmission.org.