When Robin first walked through MCFOAR’s doors, she wasn’t looking for her life to be transformed. She just needed a phone. Years of addiction and difficult choices had led to incarceration and criminal charges, and Robin was in the process of rebuilding her life. She needed a way to contact a former employer, she needed transportation to get to work and AA meetings, and she needed help with her résumé and appropriate clothes for a job interview.

MCFOAR helped with all of it, and in her words, “they changed my life.”

Gerry gave her a cell phone and minutes. He made sure she had enough bus passes to stay connected to her recovery meetings. When she needed clothes for an interview, MCFOAR helped her get them. And eventually, Robin was able to call her former employer and she got the job.

In addition to the practical assistance MCFOAR offered, something happened that Robin hadn’t expected. A visit for practical assistance turned into an hour-and-a-half conversation. She found someone willing to listen, hold her hands in solidarity, pray with her, and remind her that her past did not have to determine what came next.

“I feel the Spirit for the first time through this agency.”

Robin describes the change in her life as a series of reconnections: with herself, with her community, with the resources she needs to succeed, and, most importantly to her, with her faith. 

Today, she’s working. She’s staying connected to her recovery community. She’s pursuing stable housing and thinking about going back to school. She’s beginning to build the consistency she wants for her future. And she has a new understanding of what a second chance can mean.

“For me, a second chance has been a second chance at everything.”

Robin says MCFOAR succeeds because it pays attention to the things that can seem small from the outside but can make all the difference when someone is rebuilding a life.

They are the bus pass to get to a recovery meeting, a phone to call an employer, clothes for an interview, furniture for a new home, someone to talk to, and most importantly, someone to pray with.

“They’re in the details too. They set you up for success, for sure.”

For Robin, those details have added up to something much bigger: a chance to reconnect, rebuild, and begin again.

“I don’t know where I’d be without them today. I’m just grateful they’re here.”