My Nonprofit Reviews

I first went to Wingard home at 12 years old. My mother was in very poor health and unable to be as present as i know she so desperately wanted to be. The Wingard family took me in and stood in the gap for her in some of my most important pre-teen to teenage years. While at the ministry, I got to witness so many people's lives be transformed, including my own. Such a young girl having to leave her home would seem like a tragedy to most. For me, it was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I look back on those days as some of the best days of my life. I learned how to battle against troubles with the word of God. I learned and truly understood what it is to have faith even when you can't see it yet. I witnessed the Happy Birthday Jesus festival and that was truly an amazing thing to see and participate in. I saw the loved that poured out from the community in the form of donations, helping paint, cutting and styling our hair, and so so much more. I got my first nice purse from a woman I had never met who came to bring them to the girls and women at the home. Families, mom's with children would come in to the ministry. You could see the defeat in their eyes from the various situations they were coming from. Within days I saw the kids laughing. Within a few months, mom would be working, saving money, and buying a car or able to drive one that was donated. Eventually, families would find their own homes and set out to start their new lives. It's impossible to see these things unfold, first hand, and not have a renewed sense of hope that anything is possible. Mrs. Charlotte talked me through many ups and downs. She helped me find things I was interested in and nurtured that by getting me in the local community theater, dance at the school i went to, and she came to the recitals. I learned to value work and save money. I learned to be humble. I experienced that it was possible to find love and protection, even though the Wingard family was not my own blood relation. None of us know what the future holds, but all of this was preparing me for what was ahead in my life. My mother ended up passing away when I was 16. I am 35 now. Without those years at the ministry, I do not think that I would be the strong, community oriented woman that I am today. They changed my life. I have an arsenal of instilled values to pull from as a result of those years. They showed me how to love people. They instilled a love of giving in me. Mine is just one tiny paragraph in a book of lives the Wingard Home has helped transform. I love you guys and still very much appreciate the place you hold in my past and present life. My mother would be grateful to see how things turned out.