Hope is not something we make up or discover on our own. It’s something we grow in community.
When we moved from Chicago to Atlanta, our friend and mentor Tim Cummins had hope for what we could do and experience here. He found a place for us to live, introduced us to others in the community, and helped us start working.
In our first year of work, we met a second grader in the neighborhood named Wanda. She had amazing strength of character. As we tutored, mentored, and shared life with her over the years, we developed hope that she could lead in this neighborhood.
Because of this hope, we gave her opportunities to care for younger children and begin shaping the work of Presencia. Today as an adult, she leads our tutoring staff as they cultivate hope in the next generation. This beautiful sense of possibility grows as others join us in the work.
Hope isn’t just a chain, either. It’s a garden that requires care over the seasons. It takes patience, attention, and nourishment. We do this work together with the Presencia family, who keeps hope growing by sharing resources, inviting others into the work, volunteering, offering counsel, and praying with us through changing seasons.
Hope is vision for what’s possible. We grow it as we give, talk, work, and pray together with our neighbors. My prayer for each person in the Presencia family is that they can grow and experience hope in a deeper way by loving our neighbors with us.
Thank you for cultivating hope with us!
Ruthie North
Executive Director