DOUBLE Your Impact and GiveBIG!

Don't miss your chance to GiveBIG and DOUBLE your impact while our $50,000 Matching Grant is in effect! Right now, a generous friend of the Mission has committed to matching your gift, up to $50,000 for GiveBIG. That means for every dollar you give, two dollars will go towards supporting our homeless and hurting neighbors, helping even more lost neighbors become found!  

Despite her father struggling with alcoholism, Sherry shares that her mother was “a fantastic mother” and that her upbringing was “pretty good”.   

While in high school, Sherry became pregnant. Determined not to raise her son on welfare, she graduated a year early and began working. At 19, she had her second son and married a man who ended up being abusive. Sherry turned to drugs to try to cope with her circumstances. 

After 3 years, Sherry divorced her husband and fell deeper into her addiction. Due to her lack of education, employment options were limited and Sherry ended up working in a strip club to support her addiction.  

Though she later entered treatment a number of times, Sherry went back to her addiction, a struggle that would last 20 years. During her addiction, Sherry experienced periods of homelessness. “I slept in the woods a couple of times …. I was on the streets. I got arrested just so I could get some comfort indoors. I was miserable,” she shares. 

When Sherry arrived at Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission, she finally surrendered her efforts to figure out life on her own. “I just wanted to figure out what was I running from and why.” she says. “What made me have such an addictive personality? What I really loved about Hope Place is that it taught me about my enabling, my codependency." 

Sherry grew tremendously in her time at the Mission. “It gave me the strength to speak up for myself and just to set healthy boundaries and just believe that I have everything in me to make it, to be... independent and a productive member of society.” 

Sherry graduated from the Mission's recovery program and later went back to school, earning degrees in human services. She now works as a recovery specialist, helping others who struggle as she once did. “I'm just very grateful to Seattle's Union Gospel Mission,” she says. “I was the treatment queen. I had been to so many treatment centers, but I always knew that God was the only thing. God actually delivered me from crack..., God is the center of my life ... I depend on God for everything in my life.” 

Together, we can help more homeless neighbors like Sherry find the hope and resources they need to rebuild their lives. Please respond to the $50,000 Matching Grant with your most generous GiveBIG gift today through May 7!