Michelle Garcia and her 3 children 18 months ago.
It is time to say thank you to the readers of RichmondMom.com. As many of you know, my adventure started about 18 months ago with a story about myself and my three children in a homeless shelter eating Dinner on a Frisbee.
Since that time, we have met so many generous and compassionate people. In our journey, we have discovered our strengths and are now on a mission to create something greater than my family and myself. It is my new personal goal to help other women and children, who find themselves in the same place and have to make the decision to leave an abusive relationship and start to restore a successful lifestyle.
It is now time for “Dinner on a Frisbee” to do more than just fill my heart. I want this to symbolize new beginnings and I want to begin to provide resources to help these families for food, shelter, counseling and employment.
The kids today!
I will use my experiences, which were not always positive, to help in this endeavor. I know what it takes, what the barriers are and how difficult it is. I struggle every day with steady employment, paying the rent and taking care of three young children on my own without any outside support. A sick day for one of the kids becomes a disaster because it means a day off work, and no income. With three children, sick days in the winter are continually a challenge, but I find new ways to cope with the problems and we are getting stronger every day. I now feel that I am winning the battle and I want to continue to add daily victories as we move to a better life.
Michele today
I have co-founded a not-for-profit group called Dinner on a Frisbee or DOAF. You can “Like” us on Facebook or check out our website Dinneronafrisbee.com. We are under the umbrella of Hands Up Ministries, (HUM) who provides affordable housing in the inner city. We hope this year to open an office along with HUM in Highland Park in a home that is currently being renovated. One of our goals this year is to attain our nonprofit status and hope to begin some fundraising. In conjunction with HUM, we recently did a very successful stock the hygiene closet for the house on 4th Street. Did you know that EBT cards (the cards issued by the government to help purchase food for low income families) doesn’t cover necessities like toilet paper, shampoo, clothes detergent and no women can’t buy tampons with an EBT card. Just a few posts on Facebook and generous women like you opened their hearts and their closest and nearly overwhelmed us with donations.
I wanted to thank you all since this is where it started, with my Dinner on A Frisbee story. The readers of Richmond Mom banded together to give me help and hope when I needed it the most. Stay tuned, our story isn’t over, but thanks to you all, you gave us a start. God Bless.
