What if helping people actually started with asking what they need?

I was a deeply troubled teenager. I was a runaway with an arrest record. I stole. I was labeled a delinquent, and I hardly ever attended school. I was living with mental illness, surrounded by a depression so deep and dark that I struggled to imagine a future beyond it. There were times when I did not want to continue living.

But even during the years when I was hurting the most, something inside me still wanted to help other people. I could recognize pain because I lived inside it. I knew what it felt like to be unheard, misunderstood, judged, and unable to find the light switch that might make the darkness disappear.

HOP’s CommUNITY helped turn my life around. The counsel, guidance, life lessons, resources, patience, and unwavering support I received were unmatched. I was not treated as a lost cause or reduced to the worst things I had done. Someone saw beyond my behavior, recognized the person underneath the pain, and helped me believe that my life could become something different.

The woman standing before you today is not the troubled teenager I once was. That version of me is gone—but I know her. I remember how she thought, how deeply she hurt, and how desperately she wanted someone to hear what she could not yet explain.

I do not erase her or pretend she never existed. I carry the lessons of her life with me. Because she once was, I can recognize the teenager who is acting out because she is hurting. I can sit with the person who feels invisible. I can listen to someone searching for the light switch and help them believe that darkness does not have to last forever.

Today, I am a wife, a mother, a sister, a helper, and a community support advocate. I am also the Founder and Executive Director of HOP’s CommUNITY.

The support that once helped save and transform my life has become the foundation of the work I now offer to others. HOP’s CommUNITY helped me find my way out of the darkness. Now, I have the privilege of walking beside other people as they search for their own way forward.

My past is not the end of my story. It is part of the reason HOP’s CommUNITY exists.