‘Mother Teresa of Las Vegas’ following a vision to help those in need
She has been called the Mother Teresa of Las Vegas by some, and others have questioned her sanity. Bonnie Polley, 73, laughs at both assertions.
As chaplain of the Clark County Detention Center, she has looked into the eyes of some of society’s worst. As a deacon in the Episcopal Church, she has looked into the eyes some of the town’s poorest.
Polley and her husband of 54 years, David, moved to Las Vegas in 1964. Her husband, an attorney, struggled with alcoholism. Her middle son was eventually diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. With her thick Louisiana accent still firmly intact, she explains how raising her three boys in a dysfunctional marriage "just about broke me."
The turning point for Polley came while walking home alone from a New Year’s Eve party in the late 1970s. She had refused a ride from her intoxicated husband. As she walked, she realized she was "at the bottom of the barrel" and that her "life was a mess."
Finding herself at her "wit’s end" on that cold winter night, Polley started a one-sided conversation with God and finally "surrendered."
"The next morning I woke up, and I didn’t know what had happened, but I knew that I was going to be all right," she said.
She embraced her newfound spiritual awakening with the fervor that typifies many new recruits. Seeking direction, Polley went to Christ Church Episcopal, 2000 S. Maryland Parkway, and signed up for a series of small group classes. Her class assignment was to reach out to others.
"I was gone over the deep end," she said with a musical laugh and her characteristic intense energy. "I did go cuckoo. People just kind of stopped talking to me."
She couldn’t blame them. Polley didn’t know what she was going to do with this spiritualism but was guided by a series of events that have since shaped her life’s purpose.
A local dentist called Polley’s dental staffing business, seeking a replacement for Carol Lamb, the dental assistant whom Polley had recently placed in his office. Inquiring why she hadn’t worked out, the dentist told her that Lamb was in jail for the murder of her husband.
"I knew in that moment that I needed to go visit her," Polley said. Lamb’s deceased husband was the nephew of Clark County Sheriff Ralph Lamb. Polley thought that because the victim was the sheriff’s nephew, she might not be let in to see Lamb.
She remembers being escorted into the visitors’ area and then waiting to see the prisoner. Her heart was pounding so hard she swore she could hear it. Eventually, Carol Lamb was brought into the room.
Surprised to see her, Lamb asked what she was doing there. Polley said, "I have no idea. I just came here because God told me to come see you." They talked uninterrupted for two hours. Polley had found her calling.
At church, she heard about an organization called Friends Outside, a California nonprofit group whose mission is to improve the quality of life of families, children and communities impacted by incarceration. She founded a branch in Las Vegas and gathered like-minded people to help.
Polley borrowed the Christ Church Episcopal van, and along with other volunteers, provided free transportation for the families of inmates at the newly opened prison in Jean. "So many people wanted to go," she said. "We had to buy a mini bus that the school district had ‘retired’ because it was falling apart."
On Christmas Day one year, a wheel came off the bus and went rolling into the desert, Polley said. The families had no seat belts, and the bus was packed. Children were hanging out the windows. "Only God was holding that bus up," she said. "It just went slower and slower and then stopped." No one was injured.
In 1982, Polley was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal Church. The ordination qualified her as a chaplain and enabled her to volunteer at the Clark County Detention Center in the Volunteer Chaplaincy program. For 22 years, she received no salary or compensation. In 2004, she was hired as full-time chaplain.
How does Polley interact with people in jail without passing judgment?
"I meet people where they are (in life) — letting go of judgment frees me," she said. She admits that half the time she doesn’t even know why they are imprisoned. "It never enters my mind."
Erin Breen, a Paradise Valley neighbor and community activist, said, "Bonnie Polley is one of those people that you can spend five minutes with, and she lowers your blood pressure by 10 points." Whether she meets Polley while walking her dog Rufus or appearing before the state Legislature, she said, "You know that you are in the company of a good presence."
The role of deacon in the Episcopal Church is to "tell the church the needs of the world," Polley said. She is a founding member of the Huntridge Teen Clinic, 2100 S. Maryland Parkway, Suite 1, which provides free to low-cost medical and dental care to adolescents; the Shade Tree, 1 W. Owens Ave., which provides shelter to abused and homeless women and children in crisis; and Parson’s Place, 624 E. Stewart Ave., which provides transitional housing after shelters, rehab or incarceration.
Polley noticed that people kept walking into the church office asking for help. "We had a box, and we would give them a can of beans or something," she said. She decided that the church should open up a food pantry and outreach office. Needing approval from the vestry, the governing board of the church, she gathered up her Bible and went "loaded for bear."
Members of the vestry questioned her motivation and thought she was probably going to get herself "killed or something. What they meant was, ‘You have 30 days to fall on your face, and then you’ll get out of our hair.’ "
Without funding or volunteers, Polley believed that, as in the movie "Field of Dreams," if she built it, they would come. The next morning, she received a call from a representative of the Community Food Bank, which was starting a new project, and asked Polley if the food bank could use the church parking lot as a food distribution site to provide food free. Epicenter on the Parkway was launched in 1984.
"For a year they gave us all the food," Polley said. "It was supposed to be just for this ZIP code; that lasted about a week. They (the needy) were coming from as far away as Henderson and Boulder City." It was the only emergency food pantry in the city that was open more than one day a week.
Open from 10 a.m. to noon Monday through Friday, clients must bring a food referral voucher from another social agency such as HELP of Southern Nevada or Clark County Social Services to be eligible to receive emergency food supplies once a month. The center partners with Family Promise, 320 S. Ninth St., an interfaith family network that provides transitional emergency family housing, Bishop Gorman High School’s Matthew’s Closet, a clothing outreach program, and Three Square food bank to offer other services.
Polley’s dream for the future is to build a state-of-the art social justice center on the church campus. The current buildings are 58 years old. She envisions a consolidation of services that are duplicated throughout the community. "We need to get people on board," she said. "We need local officials to support this idea."
To learn more about Epicenter on the Parkway, go to epicenternv.org or call 735-7655.
