I have had many great bosses over my career and Peggy was one of them. We bonded by being female in a male dominated engineering company.  I admire many things about Peggy, one of them is she never complained about people and let me tell you there were many she could have complained about. The second reason I admire Peggy is she lives her religious convictions.

Peggy’s favorite charity is Fellowship Housing. (Click here to find out more.) This is a wonderful charity that is fighting homelessness and poverty, one single mom at a time..  Their mission is to empower single moms by taking an intensive two-year program that takes them from the verge of homelessness to being confident, independent and financially stable.  Fellowship housing exemplifies the proverb, “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, but if you teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime”.  To modify for fellowship housing’s mission, it would read, Give a mom money your feed her family for a day, but give her financial skills you change her children’s life forever..

Peggy and David (Peggy’s husband) are Investor Property Partners with Fellowship Housing.  They have bought not one, but four town homes that they have fixed up and are currently occupied by single moms and their children.  Rather than renting out the town homes at market price, they rent it to a Fellowship Housing mom at a reduced rate. Peggy and David believe when you are blessed you bless others.

One of the furnaces broke in one of the town homes on the coldest winter day, Peggy made sure someone was available to fix it.  She was at the home and without even blinking an eye gave the HVAC man her credit card.  She not only paid the $700 bill but gave a prayer of thanksgiving that she was able to do so.  She was grateful for the opportunity.  Now, that is what I call a kind heart.

Many single moms hit a low point in their life, either because of bad choices, bad luck, medical conditions or other factors. Fellowship Housing moms are working full time to get their life on track.  I don’t know about you, but when I was working full time with children, it was not an easy road, even with a husband to share the work load. Our society judges single moms too many times as failures and don’t understand how hopeless they feel.  I am thankful that there are people that are breaking the poverty cycle by caring to give a hand up.   This week’s Caring Heart award goes to Peggy and David Shumway!

Discussion points: 

How many chances should a person get?

Who have you judged and should have blessed them instead?

Caring heart award is given to those that are unsung heroes in our society.  If you would like to give a caring heart award to someone you know, please fill out the contact form at LiveKinder.com.  I would love to honor them on my Live Kinder blog.

Staying in Touch: Barbara Hirsh can be reached at info@LiveKinder.com  I love hearing your kindness stories.  Please sign-up for almost weekly kindness message at www.LiveKinder.com or follow LiveKinder on Facebook!