As the mother of five adult children, Deborah Brooks wondered about the next phase of her life.
“I prayed and asked God, ‘Where do I go?’” said Brooks, who started a ministry called Purses Filled with Passion in 2019.
Not long after praying that, she woke in the middle of the night, knowing she had to do something to help women. She immediately got out of bed to start searching the web to find out what kind of needs women had that she might be able to meet.
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“All kinds of different ideas popped up,” she said.
Then, she came across a program in New York that gave purses to women, and she thought of something she could do. She could create purses filled with love.
Brooks works nights as a dispatcher, and she’s been on the receiving end of the domestic violence calls. She’s heard the fear in women’s voices; she’s heard their heart-wrenching cries, she said.
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She decided to collect purses and take them to women who came out of those types of situations. She fills them with items such as toiletries, makeup, body sprays, journals and pens with a goal of lifting their spirits.
Knowing that many of these women in programs such as SafeHomes sometimes leave with nothing but the clothes on their backs, she wanted to give them something that would comfort them as well as filling a practical need.
She’s taken purses to Hope House to help women coming out of addiction and to SafeHomes Domestic Violence Intervention Center.
She’s also done bags for the homeless. She doesn’t give them the nice purses because she said that she wouldn’t want to put them at risk. Someone might see that purse and try to take it.
She puts the toiletries and other items in black bags for men and a pink bag for women.
Brooks said she doesn’t always get direct feedback from the recipients because of confidentiality, but she hears from the people who work in those organizations.
“They are so happy,” she said.
She did receive several handmade thank-you cards from the women at Hope House, and she’s kept them because they meant so much to her.
Brooks is in the process of collecting purses and items to put in them for her Mother’s Day giveaway.
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She said she likes what she’s been able to do so far, but she’d love to expand. She’d like to be able to give bookbags to women going to college or purses to women who may have lost their jobs.
“I believe (God) blesses us to bless somebody else,” she said.
To learn more, email Brooks at pursesfilledwithpassion@gmail.com.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com.
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