GRBB: Faith, Grit, and the Radical Power of Showing Up

By Donna Castillo-Garcia, RN, BSN,

FNP-DNP(c)

Founder & Executive Director,

Grassroots Bridge Builders ICT

May 3, 2025

As I near the end of my doctoral training, I’ve been deeply reflecting on the journey of building Grassroots Bridge Builders ICT. What started as a dream—a bold idea that trauma-informed care could exist outside of traditional institutions—is now a mobile, living, breathing movement.

But let me be honest: it hasn’t been easy.

Renovating our 35-foot mobile services unit has been one of the most exhausting and emotional undertakings of my life. Every broken pipe, every rusted beam, and every failed repair felt like a metaphor for the broken systems we’re trying to work within. There were nights I questioned everything—from my ability to keep going, to whether this work was even possible. How do you offer care coordination and service navigation in an environment where so many resources simply don’t exist? How do you build a sustainable program when the landscape is full of gaps, judgment, and barriers?

And yet, every time I begin to falter, I remember who I have the privilege to work beside.

This mission is not mine alone. It belongs to the men and women who have built GRBB with me—especially Sara and Shawnia. These two women face hurdles I cannot fully comprehend. Their strength, resilience, and unwavering honesty remind me why we do this. We show up for each other. Some days are full of wins and smiles. Other days are quiet, hard, or heartbreaking. And some days… no one shows up at all.

But we don’t give up.

We cover each other when one of us is struggling. We carry each other when the burden feels too heavy. We each play our role—uniquely, imperfectly—and we lean into one another’s strengths. That is the heartbeat of GRBB. That is what makes this work holy.

This is more than service delivery. This is the socio-medical model of tomorrow—raw, unapologetically human, and rooted in community. It’s what happens when you build something that makes space for the “nontraditional,” the “odd,” the “difficult.” It's what happens when we choose to see the differently-wired, differently-lived, and differently-abled not as exceptions, but as essential. We don’t “fix” people here. We make space. We hold space. We grow it together.

At GRBB, we’re just little lost things out here finding each other—led by faith, not by sight. That is the real work. That is the revolution.

And it is the greatest honor of my life to be part of it.