Hope outlasts poverty
Michael Iglio, CEO and President of Catholic Charities Fort Worth client, gives a brief speech to more than 750 guests during CCFW's Creating Hope Luncheon at Will Rogers Memorial Center Dec. 10, 2024. (NTC/Juan Guajardo)
FORT WORTH — Each December, Catholic Charities Fort Worth hosts Creating Hope, an event to share a glimpse of a few clients the nonprofit has helped become the “successful, accountable, contributing, and thriving persons they were meant to be,” explained Michael Iglio, CEO and president of CCFW.
This year, the decision of which clients to highlight was more challenging than ever. In 2024, the nonprofit set a record, assisting more than 1,000 households out of poverty by long-term case management and financial resiliency programs.
At Creating Hope on Dec. 10, nearly 750 community members heard from a few of these families.
Krischelle Cook, 31, credited CCFW with helping her find a “bigger, brighter future” when she was struggling with debt and domestic abuse.
She described her previous life dramatically, saying, “It looked like my house was on fire, like all my rooms were burning at different places, and it was out of control. My foundation was exposed.”
Cook reached out to CCFW and enrolled in Padua 2.0, which offers holistic, relationship-based, and research-backed services, helping her with budgeting and accountability as well as emotional wellness.
She compared CCFW to a guiding lighthouse as she left her previous life to “grow and blossom to where I am right now. They see the good in you and see what’s good for you.”
Having completed a certification as a yoga instructor and found employment teaching dance and fitness, she has made a career with her passion.
Another client, Miranda Sweeney, 37, shared her “roller coaster of a journey” from a childhood on the Mississippi coast with drug-addicted parents to raising a family and managing the sonography department at a Texas hospital.
Like her parents, Sweeney began using drugs, and by ninth grade, she was selling pills to classmates.
When Hurricane Katrina left her homeless and derailed college plans, she moved to Texas to start anew.
She did. By 2017, she was married with three children and had been drug-free for years. She wanted to enroll in college to become a sonographer, “but balancing school and family and finances was pretty overwhelming.”
Educational navigation from CCFW “wasn’t just about financial and practical help. It was about having someone in my corner. Becky, my navigator, was that person for me. … For the first time in my life, someone other than my husband was there for me and believed in me when I really needed it the most,” she said.
Sweeney’s experience exemplifies that CCFW’s programs have long-term effects.
Iglio said, “There is no one-size-fits-all solution to overcome the hurdles that so often life throws at us. … When we are able to change a mindset, it not only reshapes and uplifts the person right in front of us, it creates generational impact.”
Volunteer, contribute to, or learn more about Catholic Charities Fort Worth by visiting CatholicCharitiesFortWorth.org.