TNN's Founder: Our Origin and Purpose
Each person touched by the Nurturing Network soon discovered that they had embarked upon a Journey with no discernible beginning or end. Whether a Client, a Member or a Servant Leader, each person entered through the same narrow Gateway.
They moved on to both offer and receive Gifts. This loving energy lives on still to nurture the seeds of a Harvest that only becomes more abundant with each passing season.
Perhaps this is why those associated with the Nurturing Network often refer to their experience as “a Journey of the Heart.” In very real way, this collective voyage will never be forgotten.
Each person played a unique and essential role in this unending love story. Here you will meet the unsung heroes who give meaning to the phrase “Compassion in Action.”:
Clients who found the courage to trust again, to overcome fear and accept practical support from total strangers.
Volunteer Members who nurtured in more ways than can be captured in words.
Families who opened their heart and home to a person whose own family is unable or unwilling.
Doctors and nurses who provided medical care without charge and with the utmost of respect.
Counselors who listened and guided, encouraged and inspired at any hour of the day or night.
Employers who found a place at the professional table for a person who needed to keep her resume intact and her family nourished.
Leaders in academia who provided expedited transfers to ensure that a person’s educational plans would not be interrupted or compromised.
Lawyers who offered free consultations when legal maneuvering intimidated and undermined a person’s safety or resolve.
Benefactors who funded tuition payments when a scholarship was lost, medical bills when family resources were denied, rent and groceries when safety risks required a confidential relocation.
Board members who guided and inspired the leadership of TNN while serving as Members in all of the ways mentioned above.
Staff members who choose to devote countless hours of work each week and donated their compensation.
These are the unforgettable characters
who are writing the script for the love stories
you are about to read.
They are the wayfarers along the path
to a more hopeful life.
Please feel free to take this opportunity to meet the Clients, Members and Servant Leaders who have formed the Nurturing Network.
Consider the kind of world they helped to form.
Quietly and effectively,
communities they created.
Families having been born.
Friendships having been forged.
You may have your own hidden love story or you may sense that the “profiles in courage” featured here sound very much like your own sister or brother, your parents, your child, or your very best friend.
I invite you to take the hand
of someone waiting to walk
through the Gateway--to hope.
You can make that difference.
One that will be remembered for a lifetime.
“To overcome cynicism and become part of the solution, my advice is simply this: Say less and do more, and focus your efforts on the service of each person -- one life at a time.”
~ Mary Cunningham Agee
THE GIFTS
"Every person
who has suffered loss and pain
has faced the same choice.
Surrender to the darkness -
or refuse resentment,
reject distrust,
overcome despair.
Each Client of the Nurturing Network
has made this Journey.
Their life reflects the joy, peace, and wisdom
of having passed through the Gateway
to Hope and Healing.
Our Members’ arms are outstretched,
our hands are open wide
inviting the wounded to join us
where lasting Gifts await them.
Unconditional love,
Genuine kindness,
Empowering generosity,
Practical compassion."
~ Mary Cunningham Agee
"TNN’s non-confrontational,non-judgmental approach to providing counseling and assistance has played an important part in a positive evolution. We quietly and effectively have helped to shape a more compassionate culture by communicating through our actions that each person is worthy and infinitely valuable -- no matter how challenging their circumstances may be."
~ TNN's Founder
“Your intensity of conviction, joined with an utterly unabrasive rhetorical style, has made has made our shared service opportunity wonderfully satisfying and delightful. You speak the truth with great clarity, and yet never without that necessary note of charity.”
~ Regis Martin, Ph.D. - University Professor
(TNN Educational Member)