I'm sure we've all lamented at one time or another the fact that life doesn't come with a "Re-Do" button.  Perhaps, it was after we hurt someone with an unkind word or action, got caught speeding or decided to go against the advice of our family and friends and, when things turned out badly, wished that we had listened to them.  The list of examples could go on and on. 

Most of the people we serve at the Crisis Center are looking to redo some part of their life as well - the single mom with two young children who is facing eviction from her apartment, the suicidal caller whose drug addiction has imprisoned him in daily despair, the young child whose abuse at the hands of a loved one fills her sleep with nightmares and her days with anxiety.  What if there were a button they could push and do it all over - not go out with that man that everyone told you was up to no good, simply said "no thank you" when a friend offered his crack pipe, had a Dad who loved and protected you rather than abused you.  How different life would be now!

Even at the Crisis Center, we can't re-do the past, but we can change the future. While we don't have a "re-do" button to loan to the 160,000 people who reach out to us each year, we have something better: HOPE!  At the onset of every transformation, every instance of help and healing, hope is the turning point.  I know this because client after client tells me so.  A rape survivor relays her story at a Crisis Center tour and afterwards when I ask her what we did that made it possible for her to stop being tormented by the trauma of her past, she tells me it was giving her hope that she didn't have to hurt anymore.  A mom tells me that when she brought her sexually abused daughter to our Corbett Trauma Center, she just wanted her daughter to get better.  After therapy was over, this same mom tells me she got so much more. Now she and her daughter have a loving  

relationship that they never thought possible before the advent of hope.

There is one simple reason we at the Crisis Center are able to do what we do - you.  You are the one who makes hope - and the help and healing that come with  

it - possible.  Your donations of time, money and talent allow us to respond each time someone in crisis reaches out through their pain and despair, praying, trusting that life can be different.  At this year's Cup of Compassion and throughout the year, I will ask you to continue your commitment because I know what will happen if you don't.  Someone will need us and we won't be able to answer their call or offer counseling or advocacy or case management services.  But with your continued support, I guarantee you that there is one "re-do" that you will never have to worry about and that is the deep regret that follows us when we had a chance to do something good and important for someone in need and we turned away. 

Thank you for being the start of Hope in the lives of so many.  Thank you for supporting the Crisis Center.