“That was me.”

A successful, driven and respected sales associate for a major print and marketing communications firm, Karen was normally very prepared for first-time meetings with potential clients.  This time, however, she was coming off an especially busy week and found herself not quite ready.

“I’m so sorry,” she began, “but I’m not as familiar as I’d like to be with your work, could you tell me a little more about it?”

And so Cathe Dykstra began to tell Karen about the work of Family Scholar House.  Only she hadn’t gotten very far into the mission of FSH when she noticed Karen’s eyes filling with tears.  She did her best to forge ahead, having no idea what was happening.  Meanwhile, Karen, horrified that she was expressing such raw emotion in a business setting, tried unsuccessfully to reign in all that she was feeling.  And, finally,  Cathe paused to ask the obvious question, “Are you okay?”

Karen, her voice breaking, said only, “That was me.”

“That was me,” she said, and went on to tell Cathe her story.  How she’d found herself unexpectedly pregnant just prior to beginning her freshman year of college.  How the baby’s father hadn’t wanted much to do with it all.  How she was determined to get her degree, to excel, to chase her goals, even though everything was about to change and she had every reason to back away from her commitment to college.  How the baby came a little early and so she missed finals her first semester and had to make them all up after Christmas.  How her family pitched in and helped.  How friends, anonymous strangers, even professors, all, each in their own way, cheered her on when it all seemed so impossible.

Cathe understood.  The meeting was a very successful one. And Karen is now a committed friend to and partner with Family Scholar House.

She’s the original member of the FSH “Spirit Team,” volunteers who focus on FSH families and how community and energy can be built among them.  FSH “finals baskets” are a brainchild of Karen’s, as are Easter Egg Hunts (the eggs being filled with things like baby food or granola bars) and any number of other special projects that help our families remember how supported they are, and how much of a community they have in one another.

Karen’s own story intersected with the story of FSH in such a way that everyone learned a little bit more about what it means to work together for a good and common cause.  And as Karen will tell you, we’ve got plenty of spirit around this place as a result!

****

That’s the thing about Family Scholar House and our stories–we’ve all got one.  Every staff member, every volunteer, every family–we’ve all got a story about why FSH matters to us.  Karen’s is just one.

What will yours be?

Pantry Talk

“Hey honey, let’s split up this package of tissue boxes.  There’s five in there, and I only need a couple of them.”

“Didn’t you say your son likes chicken?  There’s a whole one in the freezer section.  Chef Nancy taught us how to cook those–you want it?”

“Here’s the toothbrushes you need!”

“Can we split this set of paper towels, too?”

“Wait, nevermind–I don’t need those.”  (Imagine this speaker shaking her head and placing the package of cookies back on the rack.)

****

Three women.  All single mothers with multiple children.  All noticeably older than the young women they sit in college classes with.  All of whom are surviving–no, triumphing–over the circumstances that have led them to be Family Scholar House residents.

Yesterday these three women visited the FSH pantry and supply area together.  The pantry is regularly stocked by Dare to Care.  The supply area is thankfully often full of donations from FSH supporters, both individuals and local businesses.  In this pantry and supply area can be found kitchen staples and basic household items.  Paper towels, Kleenex, cleaning agents–these can all strain a meager budget, no matter how carefully it is managed.  And food stuffs courtesy of Dare to Care are how many of our families are able to put balanced, healthy meals on the table.

Yesterday these women “shopped” together–chattering and laughing, exchanging stories about their children and their professors and what stresses them out.  They helped each other find what was needed, encouraged each other to get what would work best in each household (“I don’t know how to cook that chicken–but you do–take it.”).

They are community–kindred spirits in their common endeavor to be the best scholars and mothers they can be.  Their few minutes in the pantry embodied what matters most about Family Scholar House–our belief that we are–all of us–stronger together.  

“It’s like a circle!” she said….

The books were donated from those known and unknown.  Some came from The Temple’s annual used book sale.  Some came from high school seniors at North Oldham High School eager to do their part and help.  Some came as the result of Christ United Methodist Church’s Fall Into Reading event for FSH families last November.  They’ve come from individuals, groups and families all over the state of Kentucky and beyond.

We’ve had these books for a while now, dreaming of the day when they could finally line the shelves of the reading room at FSH’s Stoddard Johnston Scholar House campus.  Thanks to SJSH nearing completion enough to house the books, and the University of Louisville’s Martin Luther King, Jr. Day of Service, produced by the Engage Lead Serve office, today became the day.  The project isn’t quite done–there is still alphabetizing and organizing and straightening to do, but the hardest work has been graciously and joyfully completed at the hands of fourteen young women and their UofL staff advisor.

Halfway through their work today, one of the young women approached the FSH staff person on site and said, “Ma’am, what are you going to do with the books you don’t use?”  In corner of the room was a growing pile of duplicate books and their fate had not been decided.

The staff member responded, “Well, I’m not sure.  Why?”

“Well, I’m in the honors program at school,” the young woman said, “and every year we host a book sale in the Red Barn, and the profits go to a designated charity.  This year, we’re giving all the money to Kosair’s ICU.  I wondered if maybe I could take the extra books for our sale.”

The staff member thought for a minute and then decided, “Yes.  Yes, you can have them.  For that cause, you can have them.”

And the student smiled her thanks and replied, “Oh, and if we have any books leftover after our sale, we give them to Wayside.”

More than one Family Scholar House kiddo has known the care of Kosair Children’s Hospital.  And more than one FSH family has known shelter at Wayside Christian Mission.  Knowing these two important connections, the staff member shared them with the student.

“Oh!” the student shouted gleefully, “It’s like a circle!” 

And yes.  As a matter of fact it is a circle:  a circle of donated books and selfless service and shelter in times of need and care in times of sickness and a way forward when there seems to not be any such way.  This is what it means to work together–out of relationship–on behalf of those who need some help, that new opportunities might be made known and new ways of being might be lived into.

Home for the Holidays

It was just after three in the afternoon, plenty of sunlight outside streaming in through the big front windows–but every light in the apartment was on, blazing–even the little lights over the bathroom sink and the kitchen counters.  Even the closet lights.  “I’m sorry,” she said, “I know it’s such a waste of energy, and I won’t leave them all on for long…but it’s just so beautiful!  I want to see it all lit up for a while!”

“It” is her new apartment at Stoddard Johnston Scholar House, the third residential facility of Family Scholar House.  Marleena and her four year-old daughter moved in six days before Christmas.

Like so many others who’ve found their way to FSH, Marleena’s journey has not been easy.  Like so many others, life hasn’t worked out quite like she’d hoped it would, planned for it to.  And, now, like so many others, she’s found a solid place to stand each day and a safe place to be both the best scholar and the best mother she can possibly be.  She has said “yes,” to full-time parenting and full-time school, and, in doing so, has committed to being part of the FSH residential community.  She’s beaming–absolutely lit up with joy at having landed at her new address at Scholar House Way (of her new address she says, “It just makes you sound brilliant!”).

She’s set her sights on the prizes of a nursing degree (via Bellarmine University), homeownership, “rocking” the nursing world and a life that holds more goodness than not.  Her daughter is as amazing as she is and of her Marleena says, “She’s just so smart, and I want someone to grab a hold of that brain!”  What every good mother wants.  In all times and places. 

Marleena knows sadness and desperation, hurt and confusion, loss and fear.  She’s known abuse.  She’s known homelessness.  She’s known feeling like utter failure.  But these days?  These days she knows hope.  

Her story, it’s just beginning.  She’s got the whole world in front of her, no matter the mistakes and heartache and pain of the past.  And, for now, at least in these quiet days after Christmas, her greatest happiness is knowing that she and her daughter are home–and the future is even brighter than those lights she’s got on everywhere.

The Holidays: according to our youngest scholars….

When instructed to "draw or color a picture that represents what the holidays mean to you," these pictures are what some of our FSH children--our youngest scholars--produced. For these children, and their understanding of community, generosity and thanksgiving, we are thankful. We know that among them are fine future leaders, and we're lucky to get to be a part of their beginnings.

 

All of Us Together

Imagine, if you will, somewhere in the neighborhood of 150 children (plus Mom or Dad) gathered at Cochran Elementary School (a wonderful FSH partner!) for the annual Family Scholar House Resident Holiday Party.  There’s pizza (plenty of it!).  Cookies (lots of those, too!).  Juice boxes, water, veggie trays.  All the sorts of food things you might need for a party.  There’s also art supplies for a coloring contest.

Mrs. Claus comes to the FSH party, too, smiling beautifully and with such care for all our kiddos, her lap wide enough and arms strong enough to welcome as many children as will join her for a picture, or just a sweet whispered, “Merry Christmas.”  The line to see her is long and any one lucky enough to observe the visits of the children to Mrs. Claus is privy to some incredible smiles and giggles and laughter.

Mrs. Claus brings presents from folks in the community who care about our kids–new pajamas and a book for each child.  This year, the bags that Mrs. Claus delivered the pajamas in were decorated by the children of a local faith community–their stickers and glitter and crayon drawings testament to their love for other children, even ones they don’t know.

Volunteers of all sorts welcome residents to the party and work hard behind the scenes.  FSH staff serve dinner and escort kids to Mrs. Claus.  It is, truly, a team effort, born of the collaboration of many hearts, minds and bodies.  And for many FSH families, it IS their family Christmas party–their family Christmas meal.  It is, as FSH CEO Cathe Dykstra often says, “no accident” that “Family” is the first identifier in our organization’s name.  Because at FSH, we ARE family.  Always.

And so it shouldn’t surprise anyone at all that the winner of this year’s coloring contest drew a picture communicating just that–that at this time of year, we are reminded in some really wonderful ways that we truly are all in this together.

There are in this world far too many who feel alone, who feel hopeless, who feel as if there is no way forward.  At Family Scholar House, we know that not a one of us traverses this life successfully without the support of a caring community.  We’re all in this together–this we know, and this we strive to be about as we work and live and be together.  For EVERYONE who is part and parcel of our community, we are thankful.

Happy Holidays.

A Google Story

“I dropped out of high school at fifteen,” she said.  Nobody really cared—there’d never been a high school graduate in her family anyway and like most folks in her tiny Western Kentucky community it made sense for her to just go to work at the local manufacturing plant.  The money was good, benefits were even included, and working there meant being with people she knew and cared about.

Education just wasn’t a priority, and no one really saw a need to make it one with stable employment available nearby.   “Besides,” she says, “school wasn’t for me.  I always felt slow.  Like I wasn’t quite getting it.”

And then the horrible unexpected happened.  Ten years into that stable employment, the factory closed—moved to Mexico in search of cheaper company labor—and so along with hundreds of friends and family members she was left jobless.  The closest similar work was some distance away and only had second and third shifts to offer.  By then she had two children, making such a commute for such irregular hours next to impossible.

Along the way she’d managed to obtain her GED and so she thought maybe she’d try college.  For an entire semester she drove the twenty minutes in to a nearby community college, only to sit in the parking lot staring at classroom buildings, unable to go in.  “I just didn’t think I could do it.”

She tried a new town and some job training.  It didn’t work out.  Again—shift work unmanageable with children at home.  She applied for work.  Tried school again.  But the precarious balance of attempting school while having to work and single motherhood proved to be too much.  Life got very difficult, very quickly.

One day, desperate and at her rope’s end, she typed, “single parent help” into the blank slot on a computer screen and clicked, “Google search.”  Up popped Family Scholar House.

“I’d never been to Louisville.  Knew nothing about the city.  My family thought I was crazy to even think about it.”  She did it anyway.  Packed up her children and her life and moved to a strange city on the very slim hope that Family Scholar House could provide her the support she needed.  She applied to the University of Louisville, terrified to do so.  She called FSH and became an active pre-resident.  She dealt with a family who just didn’t understand her decision.

And now, almost five years after that plant in Western Kentucky shut down, she is a Family Scholar House resident, a fulltime student at the University of Louisville and the mother of two children who are so very proud of their mother and the work that they have all done—together—to create a future for themselves.

She says she often wondered how in the world she’d do it.  Often thought, “I can’t believe this is happening.”  She says she just couldn’t get her head around the opportunity Family Scholar House offered and that there isn’t a day that goes by now that she doesn’t count her blessings.

She googled “single parent help.”  And found it.  And with that help came confidence to do the things she was sure she could not do.

Her Story/Our Story

The thing about stories is that everyone has them.  

Here at Family Scholar House, each individual story contributes to the larger story of who we are, what we do, and how we make a difference in the world.

This morning, a soon-to-be Family Scholar House resident sent an email to one of our staff members, an email telling her story of how she came to FSH.  With her permission, an excerpt from that email is shared below:

Almost three years ago, I had to literally flee for my life from an abusive
marriage.  At 4:00 in the morning I put my three year-old daughter in the
car, loaded some personal items, and I drove 16 hours from Dallas, TX
straight Louisville, KY.  As I drove out of the driveway, I felt this panic
and sorrow come over me…I was leaving the comforts of a beautiful home, a
high paying job and friends that loved me.  I looked over at my baby girl
and told myself, “Do not look back, nothing is more important than your

life and providing a safe and secure environment for your daughter.”

Over the past few years we have had to live where ever someone would let us
stay, some conditions were good and some were bad; sometimes even living
out of my car.  I have been crying for almost three years, and I was about
to literally give up…ready to end my life when someone suggested I contact
the Family Scholar House.   I was skeptical that they would be able to help
me; I was already on several waiting lists for housing assistance, but was
told it would take 2-5 years.  So together we made the phone call
… and now I am about to be a resident…From the moment I was notified of the good news, my daughter and I have ridden by the construction site weekly to look at the place that will soon be our “home”; such a simple word, but so powerful. I have not been able to say that word in almost three years, it

feels so good to say it now.

Her story–but part our FSH story, too.  And a reminder of why we do this work, and of all the incredible donors, supporters and volunteers who make it happen.  For all of them we are thankful.

And we are especially thankful for our families–for their witness to what strength, courage, and determination can do, for their efforts at being the best parents and scholars they can be, for their willingness to share their stories–in order that our collective story might be one that celebrates the goodness and potential and promise in each of us.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Not quite like that TV show….

“It sure isn’t The Cosby Show,” he says, a wry grin accompanying the slow shaking of his head, “that’s what I grew up seeing as the ideal.  But my life–it isn’t like that.”

And it isn’t.  At forty years old he’s a single dad to an almost two-year old girl.  And, like all Family Scholar House residential participants, a full-time college student.  He’s majoring in Human Services, “I want to help people.  I think probably youth who are at-risk.  Counseling, maybe.”  The way he says it–deep voice speaking softly, warm personality so obviously sincere–you get the feeling that any youth who come in contact with Travis will be awfully lucky to have him as mentor and advocate.  You feel like he’ll really make a difference.

It didn’t occur to him that his job at a local manufacturing and assembly plant wouldn’t work out.  Business was good–he had a steady paycheck giving him a comfortable lifestyle, health insurance, and friends and family around.  He was well into his mid-thirties and so far not having a college degree hadn’t posed a problem.

And then he got a phone call from an old girlfriend.  She was pregnant, and a strong possibility existed that the child was his.  The next few months were difficult ones for him, and for the woman who would eventually deliver his daughter.  His job got lost in a company buy-out and reorganization, and finding other employment with sufficient pay and comparable benefits proved impossible.  Eventually, he resigned himself to drawing unemployment and trying to go to school.

In the meantime, his daughter’s mother was battling addiction–a battle that eventually lead to his daughter being born inside the walls of a prison.  When he learned that the baby was his, he sought full custody, “I embraced the opportunity to have a child,” he says, and began the work of trying to balance work, education and single fatherhood.  Decent and affordable housing proved difficult.  Making ends meet proved difficult.  It all proved very, very difficult.  But Travis was determined.

And then one day a friend and classmate at school–a single mom–told him about the place supporting her as she worked towards a self-sufficient and wide-open future for her own little family. Travis called Family Scholar House at her suggestion, and several months later found at FSH the kind of support, the kind of home, the kind of community that he and his daughter were in such great need of.

He prays for his daughter’s mom regularly.  Does his best to surround his daughter with nurturing care and dependable support. He worries that she’ll miss out by not having both her parents around.  He wants for her a balanced and fulfilled life. If you ask him what his favorite thing to do with his daughter is he’ll tell you, “Oh, making her talk!  Every time she learns a new word, it’s amazing!”

And he’ll tell you how thankful he is for places like FSH, so thankful that he’s committed his own life to being one of service.  He’ll pay it forward, to be sure.  And he’ll do it in such a way that the ripples of the grace granted him, will grace the lives of many others.

“I want to be that one person!”

No one can take away my education or my confidence.

–Keneysha, University of Louisville senior, Social Work

“How did I get here?” she asks, smiling, “Well, that’s my favorite part of the story.  It just took one person knowing about this place for me to get here.”

A former military wife who’d depended upon her husband’s salary, she found herself unexpectedly divorced with two preschool daughters, and not much in the way of a marketable resume or education.

“There I was,” she says quietly, “separated, trying to decide where to go and what to do, and I remember hearing this voice—God—saying, ‘just stay’ so I did.”  She found an apartment, got a job, put her daughters in daycare for the first time in their young lives, and enrolled in a nearby community college.  She says she didn’t sleep a lot during those years, and that the worst part was that she had so little time with her girls.

“We’d pack everything into Saturdays.  All the cleaning and laundry and errands.  And then Sunday we were always at church.”  Still, somehow she managed, eventually earning her Associates’ degree.  That was enough to spur her on to more, determined to make a self-sufficient life for her little family.  She applied and was accepted to the University of Louisville, and even though she lived an hour away, made the commitment to work on her degree.

“I called the housing office one day and asked about single-parent family housing.  They told me they didn’t have any, but that they could refer me to some apartments near the campus.  I knew I couldn’t afford an apartment, and then, whoever I was talking to said, ‘Well, there is this one program I know about’….”

That one program was Family Scholar House, and she immediately called, got to an orientation and began working towards housing.  Still living an hour away, she made the drive into town for workshops, academic advising and case management.  “I worked it!” she laughs, “even knowing that there were other participants who lived closer, who could be around more.”

And then one day, when she and her girls were coming to FSH for Christmas items, she decided that it was crucial the staff at FSH remember her name and face.  “So I went in there, with both girls, and I stood in the social worker’s office, and I said ‘This is us.  Please don’t forget us. Please know who we are.’”

By the next spring, she and her girls had an apartment, and she had the immense joy of walking to school for the first time. “It was great!” she says, “I loved it!  Had my backpack and everything!”

Now her girls see college as a “when and which one” not as an “if.”  They are learning important lessons about receiving gifts, and then living lives that give back out of what they’ve been given.  “I don’t ever want my girls to see the things we’ve been given at Family Scholar House as a ‘supposed to’ sort of thing,” she says, “what we’ve been given, it’s all blessing.”

And sharing that blessing is how she wants to spend her life when she’s graduated come next spring, and then her Master’s finished a year later.  A woman of immense faith, she is clear about one thing: “I’m open to wherever God leads me, and would love to use the skills I’m learning to give back, in whatever capacity that may be.”

She adds, “I want to use what I have to the fullest, and take care of myself and my girls in the process.  And I want to be the one person who tells someone else who needs it about Family Scholar House.”