“It has been a privilege to be involved with Olive Crest for over 20 years. My first experience was mentoring a 13-year-old girl who was living in an Olive Crest home. We have maintained a close relationship for 21 years, during which time she attended Olive Crest’s high school and I got to cheer her on during graduation. With the help of Olive Crest, she went on to college.

I was so impressed by the quality of her care and support she received during all those years, so a few years later when I sold some property and had some discretionary funds, I wanted to invest in helping some of God’s children who need assistance. After doing extensive research, I was directed to Olive Crest’s hosting program, designed to help struggling parents keep their children safe and out of the system during times of crisis. It was during this time, that I was able to partner with Olive Crest to help expand the program into a different county. Again,  my family and I’s lives were touched by the way Olive Crest continued to care for children in their community.

Shortly after, I was blessed with additional funds, but this time, God touched my heart to help with the sex trafficking pandemic. I again spent months researching how best I could use the money I had available and involved my Olive Crest mentee in making that decision. I met with a few Olive Crest leadership staff, and we started to develop a strategy, but after a few months of frustrating research, I received a call from Donald Verleur, CEO, regarding a program in Santa Barbra County in which the founders had reached out to Olive Crest for help. Donald asked if I would be interested in getting involved with this program.

My husband and I traveled to Santa Barbra, and the next day, toured the Hope Refuge Campus. On our way home, we stopped at Olive Crest and met with Donald to give him an enthusiastic thumbs up.

It was very exciting to see how God provided just the amount of money needed to purchase the Hope Refuge property to provide a program for victims of sex trafficking, ages 12-17, the only program for that age group in California. I am very excited to be involved in this project and am confident that God will use the program to greatly impact so many lives. It has been such a blessing in my life to be involved with Olive Crest and their amazing staff for all these years. I’m excited to see what next project God will enable me to be involved with in the coming years.”