Friday night, February 6th, nearly 150 people filled the ballroom at Mirabeau Park Hotel. They came together to celebrate something that started with a single meeting and a unanimous conviction: fatherlessness is Spokane’s biggest problem.
Ten years later, SpoFI has taught 97 core fatherhood classes. Graduated 841 fathers with a 93% completion rate. Watched men reunite with their children, become facilitators, launch their own fatherhood programs, and change the trajectory of their families.
But this night wasn’t just about looking back. It was about launching forward.
“Red carpet” gallery
Before the program began, some guests stepped in front of the SpoFI backdrop for quick photos, small moments that tell the bigger story. These faces are the community behind the work, the people who showed up to celebrate what the first decade proved and to help launch what comes next.
📸🎥 Event photos by Danny Cordero and video by Andrew Botterbusch of Peak Visuals
The evening in moments
The evening had a lot of ground to cover, and it moved with purpose. Ron Hauenstein served as master of ceremonies, guiding the room through a sequence of stories, recognitions, and vision-casting that made one thing clear: SpoFI was built by a community, not a single leader. The moments below capture the heart of the night, from laughter to reflection to a shared commitment for what comes next.
Throughout the night, Ron regularly paused the program to honor the people who helped build SpoFI from the beginning, because this work has always been carried by a community.
Ron opened the night the way he often does, with a few classic dad jokes to break the ice and remind everyone that fatherhood should have joy in it, even when the work is hard. Then the program shifted into what the room came for: the people, the stories, and the evidence of what happens when fathers are supported, challenged, and surrounded by a brotherhood that refuses to let them drift.
Before diving in, Ron recognized the person who’s made all of it possible: his wife Becky, standing beside him for 50 years of marriage. The crowd warmly acknowledged this special relationship with enthusiastic applause.
Then the evening got to the heart of what SpoFI is really about.
When alumni become leaders
One of the most powerful moments came early. Bryan Mochel, a Dad2Dad graduate, stood up to present an honorary Dad2Dad letterman jacket to Spencer Metcalfe.
Spencer had to move to southeast Washington before completing the 6-month Dad2Dad course— because God called him to launch his own fatherhood program, now called Inland Fatherhood Initiative. Bryan said it well:
“This man would give you the shirt off his own back. A man of true reform through God, a man who deserves to wear this jacket just as much as any man out there.”
The room erupted in applause as Bryan helped Spencer into that jacket. That is what SpoFI is building: not just graduates, but leaders who multiply the work far beyond what any one organization could do alone.
Amy Vega, Vanessa Behan: “Change happens in relationships”
Amy Vega, Director of Vanessa Behan, has been alongside SpoFI from those early days when the community was still reeling from the deaths of three toddlers in Spokane in 2016. She stood up Friday night and said something that captures everything the work is about:
“When I see those dads with your jackets on stand up, and the pride that you have in the work that you have done, you’re changing the world one on one and one person at a time. Change happens in relationships. Ron, you have created that.”
Change happens in relationships. Not in programs. Not in budgets. Not in strategic plans. In relationships — one dad, one family, one transformed life at a time.
Recognition, in real time
Ron did not save recognition for the end. He built it into the program, pausing throughout the night to honor the people who carried SpoFI from the beginning. It was a reminder that impact is never accidental. It is built by people who show up, year after year, long after the spotlight moves on.
Denny Klaja: The quiet backbone of prayer
Some people help build something with a check. Others help build it with consistency, week after week, year after year, asking God to move in hearts when the work is too big for human effort. Denny has been part of that steady foundation from the beginning, praying faithfully and cheering on the mission before there were numbers to celebrate.
“I’m just very grateful, to see, when the Lord does something amazing, he can move in people’s hearts… I’ve had the privilege of praying all these years, since 2016… and just watching God, manifest himself in dads. It’s just really good for my heart.”
Rod Schneidmiller: A longtime friend, still in Ron’s corner
Rod’s support goes back further than SpoFI itself. He’s been in Ron’s corner through the early days when the vision was clear, but the path forward wasn’t. When Rod spoke, he didn’t talk in theories, he shared a lived reminder of why fathers matter, and why a dad’s presence (and tenderness) can shape a child for life.
“I grew up in a non-Christian home… But my dad and my mom wanted my brother and I to go to church… And it was when I was in junior high I came to know the Lord… Many, many years later, my dad came to know the Lord… A father is so important even when they’re not a Christian. But God uses that.”
Geoff Swindler: A long-haul friend, counselor, and encourager
Geoff has been alongside Ron practically from the beginning—not just as a supporter, but as a personal friend, prayer partner, and steady source of wisdom and encouragement. Geoff’s conviction comes from experience. He knows what it costs when a father chooses something else over family—and he refused to let Ron coast into retirement when Spokane’s kids still needed present dads.
“My dad was a famous professor of evolution, and that was more important than raising a family.”
“Retirement, Ron, you need to do this because kids being raised without dad, this is not fair. It’s not right. It’s definitely not God’s design.”
Carl Tompkins: A connector who helped launch early momentum
Carl has spent years building community through The Way of Business, and he recognized quickly that SpoFI was the kind of mission Spokane needed. In 2017, he helped bring SpoFI into wider community awareness, supporting the team, strengthening the operating model, and connecting Ron and the early leaders with people who could help move the work forward.
“It was such a pleasure… becoming involved with Ron and the vision… about uniting our community, one family at a time… helping them build a business model… connecting them with many of you here in this audience tonight.”
“I am… a big fan… of unity… ‘If they can just be one… so the world may know that you sent me.’… unity one dad, one mom, and a beautiful handful of children, one at a time.”
Carl’s message was simple: fruit matters, traction matters, and unity is not optional if we’re serious about changing families.
Danny Green: The early door-opener who helped SpoFI launch
Before SpoFI had a track record, it needed a place to start, and a leader willing to open the doors. The first classes met at Family of Faith Church on Grace Street, where Danny was pastor. Ron credits Danny with helping SpoFI get early traction: the first class enrolled 12 men, 11 completed it, and the momentum of those early referrals continues to this day.
“Our first classes were at Family of Faith Church… Danny Green was pastor then… our first class was with 12 men, 11 out of 12 graduated… Danny was a big part of that success.” —Ron Hauenstein
When Danny took the mic, he kept it direct. Fathers matter. The need is real, not just in one neighborhood, but across the city, the state, and the country. And when the opportunity came, his church didn’t dabble—they jumped in, and men are still living what they learned.
“I believe that fathers are very important… the door was wide open because… there’s a problem… in our city… our state and our country of fathers.”
“We just jumped in with both feet… a lot of guys from our church… they are still… living the life of what they were taught.”
Fred Dent: VP, Board member, builder, and still in the room
Fred Dent has been in it since before SpoFI had a name. He helped build the legal and governance foundation, stayed at the table through every season, and continues to show up, not out of obligation, but conviction.
“What SpoFI does is builds community and builds relationships and builds friendships.”
“Everything we do is based on the teachings of Jesus Christ… without beating people up with Bibles… but meet them where they are.”
“We’ve worked with over 150 men [at Second Chances]… and of those, we’re experiencing less than 5% returning back to prison.”
Fred’s leadership carries a consistent message: meet men where they are, respect them, and build a brotherhood that restores what’s been broken. That same heart runs through Second Chances, which has served 150+ men returning from incarceration, helping restore not just individuals, but parents and families.
Where it all started
The evening took a moment to go back to the beginning — January 20, 2016, the day that became SpoFI’s official birthday.
Nearly 100 community leaders gathered at Union Gospel Mission for a City Impact Roundtable. The facilitator asked each table to identify Spokane’s biggest need. Table after table stood up and said the same thing: fatherlessness.
The facilitator was astounded. He’d led hundreds of these meetings around the world and had never seen that kind of unanimity.
John Repsold: Present at the beginning, still believing
John Repsold was at one of the tables the day SpoFI was born. He remembers the moment the room shifted from individual conviction to something none of them could take credit for.
“As we listened to everybody else give feedback, all of a sudden we’re all realizing the Spirit of God has said something here to us as a community.” Ten years later, still in the room. Still believing. “I think Spokane could be a trendsetter for the whole country.”
Darrel Startin: Scared to death, taught anyway
Darrel Startin didn’t just help build SpoFI, he taught the first class. Darrel was drawn to SpoFI during community listening sessions at The Gathering House in 2016 and 2017. When he heard people at those early community meetings talking openly about fatherlessness, something shifted.
“My gosh, people are actually talking about it.”
He showed up scared. He taught anyway.
“I was scared to death. But every time we stepped out in faith, God and the Holy Spirit were there. It brought us the people we needed to teach the classes. It brought us the students. It brought us the money.”
Derek Cutlip: Faithful from the first meeting
Ron introduced Shine 104.9 announcer Derek Cutlip as someone the room would recognize before he even stood up. Derek was at nearly every planning meeting at the Gathering House during those first critical 18 to 24 months, and Shine 104.9 has been a consistent financial supporter since the beginning.
Derek reminded the room why fatherhood isn’t just a social issue — it’s woven into scripture from the first page to the last.
“God as Father is referenced over 500 times in Hebrew. Jesus mentions it 135 times in the New Testament — not just in the Lord’s Prayer. That’s an important role. You’ve done an amazing job.”
Nathan Henry: Caring for the orphan, starting upstream
Ron asked Nathan Henry to explain Spokane 127 to the room. Nathan told the story of a farmer named Herman from Nebraska — a story that captures why James 1:27 became the heartbeat of a whole separate ministry operating under SpoFI’s umbrella.
“Spokane 127 is about working way upstream — church, we’re the ones who should be doing this.”
It’s pure religion in the most practical sense: caring for the widow and the orphan. If you’re passionate about foster care in Spokane, Spokane127.org is where that work lives.
David Wallace: He watched God light the fuse
David Wallace, who’s been at nearly every Friday morning prayer meeting since February 2017, put it this way:
“Little did we know how the Lord would work. It lit Ron Hauenstein’s fuse with the results birthing Spokane Fatherhood Initiative.”
That’s exactly what happened. And the fuse is still burning.
Validation from unexpected places
Not every endorsement comes from a donor or a church pew. Some of the strongest confirmation comes from people who spend their careers inside the hardest systems, where families are strained, stories are complicated, and “good intentions” don’t count for much. That’s why it landed differently when a DCYF leader stood up and spoke plainly about SpoFI’s reputation in Eastern Washington. It wasn’t fundraising talk. It was professional respect earned the hard way.
Erik Larsen: A government witness, and a proud dad
Erik Larsen works for the Department of Children, Youth & Families. His own son graduated from the program. What he said Friday night is the kind of outside validation that matters:
“I remember Ron coming to Our Kids Our Business Spokane Council meeting in 2015 before he even started. He came with his newspaper clippings. He came with facts. He came with passion. To go from nothing to Eastern Washington’s most revered fatherhood program. Including my own son, who’s a graduate.”
The hard truth from law enforcement
Former Spokane Police Chief Craig Meidl delivered the keynote, and he did not sugarcoat what he has seen. After three decades in law enforcement, Craig has spent his career responding to the downstream effects of broken families, addiction, and violence. His point was not to blame struggling parents or reduce complex lives to a single cause. It was to name a pattern that shows up again and again in the data and on the streets. When fathers are absent, the odds tilt in the wrong direction for kids, and the community pays the price.
Craig then shared the statistics that demand attention:
- 85% of incarcerated youth come from fatherless homes
- 71% of high school dropouts come from fatherless homes
- 90% of homeless and runaway children come from fatherless homes
- A 2016 study of 56 American school shooters found 82% grew up in dysfunctional family situations, usually without two biological parents
Then Craig quoted Matthew 9:36:
“Jesus, when he saw the crowds, had compassion on them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few.”
He paused and said:
“That is exactly what SpoFI is doing.”
Craig’s point was clear
These numbers are not meant to shock people into despair, they are meant to wake us up to what works. Policing can respond after the damage is done, but it cannot replace what a present, trained, supported father can do in a child’s life. SpoFI is upstream work. It is workers stepping into the harvest, one dad at a time, before another family becomes another case file.
The confession and the challenge
Ron Hauenstein stood before the room — supporters, graduates, community partners — and he didn’t give a highlight reel. He gave a reckoning.
“I don’t believe in this work as strongly as I once did,” he told the room. “Not because the program doesn’t work. It does. But because we’ve plateaued. We’ve imposed limits on ourselves. We’ve run this like a for-profit business instead of a ministry on fire for God.”
You could feel the air shift.
Ron shared a prophecy spoken over him and his wife Becky in October 2022 by a man who didn’t even know his last name. “There are things you have to live to see God do. There’s all this unfinished prophetic destiny hovering around you. Ron, you have such a father’s heart.”
He asked everyone in that room to hold him accountable. To help him think bigger than SpoFI ever has.
The numbers that keep him up at night
Here’s what makes Ron’s confession so significant: the program works. 841 graduates. A 93% completion rate. Men reuniting with their kids after years apart. Men learning what presence actually looks like.
But ten years ago, Spokane County’s child abuse rate was 35% higher than the state average. Domestic violence was 30% higher.
Those statistics haven’t changed.
Not because the work isn’t real but because SpoFI hasn’t been able to scale to meet the need. And Ron is done accepting that.
The faith step
Earlier that week, the SpoFI board considered a decision that would make any nonprofit finance person nervous: they discussed hiring a new full-time Operations and Programs Coordinator. The cost is $70,000. It’s not in the budget.
They may do it anyway.
“Every single time we’ve stepped out in faith and said, ‘God, it’s your money, get it done,’” Ron told the room, “you’ve shown up.”
Mission before money. It’s how SpoFI has operated from the beginning. It’s not changing now.
A vision worth repeating out loud
Ron’s vision for the next decade: grow the current $450,000 budget to $4–5 million. Launch Discipleship for Dads. Build a faith, fatherhood, and family coalition. Start the Spokane Marriage Project. Expand relationship training to include moms.
Is it ambitious? Absolutely. But so was everything else SpoFI has already done.
He closed the evening by asking everyone to repeat something together. Read it out loud right now:
“The strength of a community depends on the strength of its churches. The strength of a church depends on the strength of its families. And the strength of families depends on the strength of fathers.”
If that’s true, and the room on Friday night was unanimous, then there’s only one question left: why can’t we change things in Spokane?
Closing prayer: “Far more abundantly”
As the night came to a close, Ron invited Mark Andresen, founding board member and a steady hand from the beginning, to close the room in prayer. Mark anchored his blessing in Ephesians 3:20–21: a reminder that SpoFI’s story has always been bigger than what anyone could have planned, funded, or orchestrated.
“Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think… to him be glory… throughout all generations, forever and ever.”
“That is a testimony of what so far has been, and I believe in the years to come it will be just as powerful.”
Mark thanked God for the way SpoFI was “birthed within Ron and Becky,” and for ten years of provision, including people, opportunity, and finances, while pointing the room toward the next decade with clear purpose: that we would be instruments of peace and love, and that Spokane would see hearts restored, fathers to children and children to fathers.
“By faith, Lord, we thank you and praise you for what you will do… may all that we do bring you joy and bring you glory… let them go forth with a fresh vision… Let us be instruments of your peace… restore the hearts of the father to the children and children to their fathers.”
And then, with that prayer still hanging in the air, Ron did what every nonprofit eventually must: he invited the room to help fund the work and build what comes next.
Why we do this work
The joy on these fathers’ faces is the whole point. They completed the program, earned their jackets, and are now raising their kids with tools and community they never had growing up.
Garrett didn’t just graduate. He came back. That’s the model — men who were changed by the program becoming the ones who deliver it to the next guy. The work multiplies because the men do.
A brotherhood that lasts
Dad2Dad is where the lessons from 24-7 Dad® stop being “good ideas” and become lived habits. For six months, dads meet weekly in a counselor-led men’s process group built specifically for fathers who want to keep growing—emotionally, relationally, and spiritually. In that room, men practice emotional regulation, build self-awareness, and learn how to show up as steady, involved dads—especially when life gets hard.
The letterman jackets aren’t just a fun tradition; they’re a visible marker of commitment: men who did the work, stayed the course, and chose to keep becoming the father their kids need.
Changed dads change everything
Ten years ago, nearly 100 community leaders agreed on one thing: fatherlessness is Spokane’s biggest problem. Ten years later, the stories in this room make the next step obvious. Now SpoFI is inviting you to agree on one more: the next 10 years start now.
Full event video
Andrew Botterbusch of Peak Visuals captured the entire 10-year celebration from start to finish, and the result is exceptional. If you could not be in the room, this is the closest thing to being there. You will hear the stories, the recognitions, the keynote, the vision for the next decade, and the closing prayer in full.
More to come
Nathan Henry put together photo book documenting SpoFI’s full journey. It’s $40 through the end of February — after that, the price goes to $100.
And if you're ready to be part of what comes next, if you want to help reach that $70,000 goal and build toward a $4–5 million future, here's how you can step in:
- $46/month – Malachi 4:6 Coffee Club: Connect fathers & children with $46/month. Receive SpoFI mug reminding you with every sip you’re turning hearts.
- $83/month – Breakthrough Sponsor: Help fathers manage anger, improve communication, and show up differently for their kids.
- $500 – Class Night Hero: Support one full night of class — hot meal & the brotherhood that keeps them coming back.
- Any amount helps
Not ready to give? Just pray. Ron asked for that too.
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