April 15, 2004, will always be a special day of remembrance for Shawn Fugett, her husband James, and children, James, John, Noel, and Cheyenne, for that is the day they moved into their own home. Ten years after becoming homeless and living in the Volunteers of America Family Emergency Shelter, the Fugetts completed a home ownership-training course and achieved the American dream of home ownership.

Shawn points out the contrast between her circumstances long ago (unwed teenage mother, welfare recipient, high school drop-out) and her life now (junior at University of Louisville with a psychology major, scholarship winner, employed as a supervisor at a human services agency serving children in need, resource director of a ministry at her church, and home-owner). Shawn’s career goal is to work with teens coming out of foster care, teaching independent living skills so they may achieve self-sufficiency. Shawn recently gave a motivational speech and said in the speech: “I chose to move on and leap over the hurdles of my life. My license plate reads “O-V-R-C-M-R” (overcome). Don’t let yourself be counted as a statistic unless it is on the side of success. Success starts with a prayer, wish, or dream. Your imagination fuels it with what if’s and carries it forward with desire, which burns, grows, and gnaws at you until it brings out achievement. Recapture your dreams, stoke the fires, surround yourself with positive people, separate from the naysayers, and you will make it.”

Shawn and her family certainly have made it! They, along with other families served by Volunteers of America, have demonstrated the ability to truly overcome their circumstances and the crisis of homelessness and to achieve self-sufficiency and success.