By Tony Rossi,
Director of Communications
Since childhood, Kathy Izard felt like she was being called to do something important with her life. She mostly ignored that still, small voice until she was 44 years old. She then pursued a seemingly impossible goal, for which she was unqualified. But with God’s help, Kathy made it happen. In sharing her story, she set up chains of events that led other people to discover God’s purpose for their lives. She shares those stories in her book ”Trust the Whisper.”
Kathy earned a Christopher Award in 2017 for her memoir “The Hundred Story Home,” which chronicled her life-changing encounter with formerly homeless man Denver Moore at a soup kitchen in Charlotte, North Carolina. Though they fed the homeless, they had no beds for them, so Denver challenged her to change that. His words haunted Kathy and amplified what she calls “the whisper” that had long been encouraging her to do something more. During a “Christopher Closeup” interview, she explained, “That [whisper] felt inconvenient and uncomfortable…But at the same time, it was insistent.”
Kathy quit her job to focus on this new dream, then she connected with the right people. Together, she said, “We first started a pilot program called Homeless to Homes, and moved 13 people directly from street to home, chronically homeless men and women who had been on the streets an average of eight to 10 years.” That program changed the lives of the homeless people who participated, so Kathy and her team created a new residence for the homeless that they named Moore Place.
Kathy credits God with making all this happen: “In the beginning, when I was hearing those whispers, I thought, ‘I can’t be called to this because only priests, nuns, monks, and ministers are called.’ But I came to think we’re all called, there’s something whispering to each one of us…I do believe that God doesn’t leave us alone in our whispers. He brings along the folks that we need to help us.”
As an example, Kathy shared the story of Betsy Blue, who she got to know on a “girls’ trip” with some of her friends. Betsy shared her interest in helping the mentally ill because she had a family member with bipolar disorder—and because there was not one residential facility for mental health care in a 100-mile radius of Charlotte. Betsy had no experience in this area, though, so she was unsure if she should follow these promptings inside her.
Across the street from the inn where Kathy’s group was staying were the grounds of an old monastery, so the ladies went to walk around one morning. There was an outdoor chapel and an altar where people had left flowers, crosses, rosaries, etc. Betsy found some pages there, started reading them, and began crying. “It turned out it was a letter written by a mom who had a bipolar daughter,” Kathy explained, “and it was pleading to God for help. Her daughter was a runaway, and the mother didn’t know how to find her. She didn’t know how to help her…Betsy took this as her sign [to move forward with her idea].”
Kathy, Betsy, and 10 others came together to get this project off the ground. Three years later, they opened Hope Way, Charlotte’s first residential mental health treatment center. Kathy concluded, “I do think these small stirrings in our soul are connecting us to each other, to God, and to our truest purpose in the world.”
For free copies of the Christopher News Note AGING GRATEFULLY, write: The Christophers, 264 West 40th Street, Room 603, New York, NY 10018; or e-mail: mail@christophers.org
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