Cathy, UGM Summer Camp Mom
Others, Child Poverty , StoriesContributed by: Union Gospel Mission
“It was just me and my three kids back then, and I had just quit drinking. Going to UGM was our time for family and friends. We’d have dinner there, but really, going there kept my kids safe. Because their friends from school would go too, they’d meet up and play games together.
I see a lot of kids downtown who I remember from UGM. Years ago, a young girl was out at 2 or 3 in the morning. I asked if her parents knew she was out. She said no. I told her to go home and talk with them. I saw her again six years ago, and she goes: ‘Cathy, I want to thank you. If you didn’t keep bugging me to go home, I would’ve ended up on the streets and in trouble.
I say ‘I love you’ to my kids every day. Whether it’s before bed, or if they’re walking out the door. Other people say, ‘My kid won’t say that to me in public. They feel embarrassed.’ But that wasn’t the way I was raised. I still get an ‘I love you’ from my parents once in a while. So, I tell my children I love them too.”– Cathy, UGM Summer Camp Mom⠀
Life and motherhood hasn’t been easy for Cathy. But she’s persevered through pain and poverty to provide for her family and save the lives of neighbours.