Walking alongside Lowcountry families in crisis

The Dove Fund began in 2022 when two volunteers, acting from Christian compassion, walked alongside Veronica, a wheelchair-bound mother of five in the Lowcountry. Her family had been evicted for months and had exhausted all available support from their personal network. By the time the Dove Fund volunteers met them, Veronica and her children were mired in despair.

A stroke had left Veronica paralyzed from the waist down. Once she had worked cleaning schools; now she was destitute and struggling to pay the weekly fee at a dangerous motel on Rivers Avenue, where prostitution, alcohol abuse, and drug use filled neighboring rooms. The children were afraid to go to school and spent every day crammed into a dark room with only two beds, some sleeping on the floor.

At first, the volunteers thought they could solve the problem by making phone calls and connecting Veronica to indigent services. But calling crisis hotlines and trying to secure appointments with case workers led nowhere. Agencies were overwhelmed, and Veronica was too sick, poor, and exhausted to make her case or complete the required forms. The volunteers reached a decision point. They could say they had tried and walk away, or they could assume the role of a concerned family friend.

Not knowing what to expect, they chose the second path and launched a determined rescue campaign: driving family members to food pantries, accompanying them to nonprofit agencies, taking the older teens to job interviews, and repeatedly advocating for the family at the apartment complex that would eventually accept them as residents.

Today, Veronica and her children are safely housed and stable. The Dove Fund continues to walk alongside Lowcountry families in crisis, offering individualized care and practical support so households can stabilize after hardship.

Each Dove Fund story begins the way Veronica’s did: one family in crisis, and someone willing to stand beside them until they are safely home.