Your Gifts in Action - Sophie

Imagine yourself with three small children, no job and no home. “This is the plight Sophie faced when she came into our program in January,” says Sheila Greene, her case manager at the Villa transitional housing in Houston. “From the outset she’s done everything possible to improve that situation.”

Any young woman might have abandoned her dreams when she found herself with three daughters, having endured incessant domestic violence, a string of retail jobs (sometimes two at a time), residential uncertainties, and frugal living with public assistance.

But Sophie is not any young woman. Her family of four now shares a Villa apartment—both tiny and tidy—where she is secure and busy, having completed high school and graduated with honors to become a medical administrative assistant.

“I admire Sophie so much,” says Sheila. “No doubt she will complete the Villa program and make a good life for herself and her children.”

As for Sophie, she sums up her stay at the Villa by observing that she’s found everything she needs here: support, guidance and safety. Then with a characteristic grin, she adds three words, “All thumbs up!”