The Ones Who Chose Me

How Leanne Woods, our Program Manager, discovered her passion for serving families in need through the touching story of her grandmother.

By Krista Skiffington, Community Engagement & Volunteer Lead

“We love because He first loved us.” –1 John 4:19

Leanne's grandmother always lit up on Sundays. That was the day the family gathered around her table for a traditional Sunday dinner, and for a few hours, the house was full of plates passed, old photographs shared, and stories told. It took Leanne years to understand why those Sundays mattered so much to her grandmother. The answer she later discovered explained a lot about the woman Leanne would become.

Her grandmother's mother had come to Canada from Ireland to work as a nanny. She got pregnant out of wedlock at a time and in a culture with no tolerance for that. Returning to Ireland, she placed her newborn daughter in an orphanage (the alternative, in those days, was a workhouse). An extended family member eventually found the baby there and took her in. But growing up in that household never felt like belonging. Leanne's grandmother spent her childhood hearing her uncle complain about the burden of raising her, watching her cousin get to be the "real" child while she competed for a place that was never fully hers.

She carried that burden of unbelonging and unlovability until she met her husband: the one person, she always said, who chose to love her rather than being obligated to.

Leanne’s grandmother in Ireland in 1959.

Decades later, Leanne's daughter had a school assignment: write about someone you admire. She picked her great-grandmother. When Leanne called to tell her grandmother the news, she broke down in tears. She said she never knew anyone loved her that much; she'd always assumed her family loved her because they were stuck with her, not because they wanted to. That phone call was when Leanne finally understood the shape of the wound her grandmother had carried her whole life, and where her grandmother's fierce devotion to family had come from.

It's also, Leanne says, where her own work began… long before she had words for it.

She and her husband started volunteering with Safe Families, standing alongside women navigating single motherhood. Leanne describes it as the difference between saying you're pro-life and actually living like it: not just believing a woman should choose life for her child, but making sure that when she walks through the door scared and alone, someone is there to welcome her, support her, and stay.

That instinct – showing up rather than just believing the right thing – is what eventually led her to Lighthouse. She and Lighthouse's founder, AnnaMaria, kept crossing paths for years without quite working together: When Leanne left Safe Families, AnnaMaria joined. When Leanne moved to Stepping Stones, AnnaMaria eventually came there too. They would touch base every so often, connected by the same world of serving families in difficult circumstances, staying in touch through shared clients and referrals. Leanne calls it a slow, God-ordained kind of timing. It's also just what happens when two people are drawn to the same work long enough: eventually the paths converge.

They finally did converge when AnnaMaria asked Leanne to start volunteering for the nonprofit she was starting. It was called Lighthouse Housing Alliance, and its mission was to shine a light of hope for local families facing the burden of housing instability. Leanne lent a hand with intake and mentorship, often referring clients to the organization. Her experience quickly proved invaluable to the organization.

On one particular afternoon, Leanne was driving home from an interview with another organization that wanted her as an area director. It was a permanent paid position - something she'd been seriously considering. She'd asked her Bible study group to pray for wisdom, worried that taking the job might pull her away from the volunteer work she loved at Lighthouse. On that drive home, AnnaMaria called. Lighthouse had received a grant and a temporary paid position was available! When Leanne told her husband, he didn't hesitate: "You asked us to pray your job wouldn't take you away from Lighthouse. Seems like you got your answer."

It's a good story, and Leanne is quick to admit she didn't plan any of it. She went to school to be a preschool teacher, never expecting to end up housing teenagers, taking long-term guardianship of a high schooler, or becoming a mentor to young moms in crisis. "I don't know what I'm doing," she remembers telling her husband more than once. She did it anyway, because the kids kept showing up, and then Safe Families asked her to come on staff, and then Stepping Stones did, and then Lighthouse did. Each step looked less like a career plan and more like being needed somewhere and staying. "Through it all, God led me to exactly where I needed to be," she said. "I just said yes, and He used it."

That's still mostly what the job is, she says: showing up and saying yes. Not every family gets housed right away, and sometimes what's needed most is somebody willing to sit and listen while a person processes the worst season of their life. Leanne says clients have told her exactly that: that being heard was its own kind of gift, maybe the one that mattered most in the moment. On the harder days, when she wonders if any of it is making a difference, those are the words she comes back to.

Her grandmother spent a lifetime believing love had to be earned or owed. Leanne has spent hers trying to make sure the struggling individuals she encounters never have to wonder the same thing. "It's just so cool to see what was meant for evil, God used for good."

Leanne with her grandmother in 2014.