Our Story
I Know What It Means to Need a Helping Hand
A personal message from Trisha Hayes, Founder & Executive Director.
A Hand Up. Not a Handout.
Abba & Imma Foundation is deeply personal to me because I know what it means to experience homelessness as a child in a single-parent family.
When I was 14 years old, my mother made the difficult decision to leave an abusive marriage. She left Texas with four children—my older sister, my two younger brothers, and me—and eventually took us all the way to Wyoming in search of a safer life.
But leaving one difficult situation did not mean everything immediately became better.
We experienced homelessness. We lived in our car.
My mother was trying to protect and provide for four children without stable housing or the financial resources to start over.
Eventually, a church extended a helping hand and allowed our family to stay in a small house it had available.
We finally had a roof over our heads, but our struggles were far from over. There were times when the food we ate came from dumpsters because that was what was available to us.
I remember what those years felt like. I saw firsthand what my mother faced as a single parent trying to rebuild a life for her children.
And I remember what it meant when people chose to help us.
Our circumstances did not change overnight. It took years for our family to rise above that season. But the people who reached out to us gave us something that went beyond food or shelter.
They gave us a hand up when we desperately needed one.
From lived experience to mission
A story that shaped a foundation.
- Age 14Trisha's mother leaves an abusive marriage with four children, moving from Texas to Wyoming.
- HomelessnessThe family lives in their car, struggling to meet the most basic needs.
- A church steps forwardA church offers a small house — a roof over their heads, and a helping hand.
- Years of rebuildingWith help along the way, the family slowly rises above their circumstances.
- TodayAbba & Imma Foundation is recognized as a 501(c)(3) public charity and is laying the foundation to offer the same kind of helping hand.
Why I founded Abba & Imma
I see the children.
When I see a single mother struggling with homelessness or trying to rebuild her life, I don't simply see a statistic.
I see a mother trying to protect her children.
And I see the children.
I understand what it is like to need somewhere safe to sleep. I understand what it means to live without financial security and to wonder how basic needs will be met.
Most importantly, I understand how much difference one church, one community, or one compassionate person can make.
I understand because I was that child.
That experience is at the heart of Abba & Imma Foundation.
Our vision is to create a place where single mothers and their children can receive more than temporary assistance.
We want to help families rebuild their lives through transitional housing, practical life skills, family support, employment readiness, entrepreneurship opportunities, and a caring community.
Our purpose is not simply to help a family survive today's crisis.
It is to help them establish a foundation for tomorrow.
A hand up, not a handout.
Our foundation
Our Foundation Is Jesus Christ
There is something else at the heart of this mission that I cannot separate from my story.
Jesus Christ is our foundation.
Housing matters. Food matters. Employment matters. Financial stability matters. These are real needs, and they deserve real solutions.
But I also believe that when everything around a person has been shaken, they need a foundation that cannot be shaken.
For Abba & Imma Foundation, that foundation is Jesus Christ.
Our desire is to help women and children move beyond survival and begin rebuilding their lives with dignity, stability, opportunity, community, and hope.
We want to offer practical assistance while sharing the love of Christ through compassion, encouragement, prayer, and service.
From one generation to the next
The hardest chapter does not have to be the last.
I don't have photographs of the years when we lived in our car or struggled to find enough food.
What I have are the memories.
But I also have photographs of what came afterward.
I have photographs of my mother with the generations that followed us. I have photographs of my siblings and me together as adults. I have photographs of my own children and grandchildren.
They remind me that the hardest chapter in a family's story does not have to be the last chapter.
My mother needed a helping hand when she was trying to keep four children safe and together.
People stepped forward. A church stepped forward.
And although rebuilding our lives took years, that help mattered.
I cannot change what that 14-year-old girl experienced.
But I can allow what I learned through that experience to help shape a place where another mother and her children can receive the same kind of helping hand.
Someone did that for my family.
Now it is our opportunity to do it for someone else.
Trisha Hayes
Founder & Executive Director
Abba & Imma Foundation
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You can support the developing mission through prayer, partnership, volunteering, or financial giving.
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