I’ve not told this story before, so bear with me if it’s a little longer than usual. The Colonel often said, “Every action matters. Like a small pebble makes a ripple, even a very small action can have huge significance.”
In 1981, a woman fled her abusive husband, not knowing where she would go or if she could even make the escape successfully. Her husband was a long-tenured police officer with political connections throughout the state. She knew if she didn’t leave, she would die. She also knew that if he caught her, she was determined to end her own life before he could. It was one last desperate attempt to break free. She left with nothing but the clothes on her back and drove to a town across the state line. She ditched her car in a lake and walked to a McDonald’s about a mile away. There she sat for hours, trying to figure out her next move or if it was even worth trying, when a stranger approached her. The elderly stranger placed a bag containing a hamburger and fries in front of her, saying, “Forgive me for presuming, but you looked hungry,” then walked away. Inside the bag, on top of the napkins, was a card that simply said “Safe House” and an address. After a few more hours, the restaurant was closing, so she asked at the counter for directions to the street named on the card and then walked for three hours to find the address. Knowing it could be a trap, but not sure what else to do at three in the morning, she took a leap of faith and knocked on the door. The nondescript home in a quiet neighborhood was indeed a shelter for battered women. There she found compassion, security, therapy, and the resources she needed to move across the country to Phoenix, AZ, making a fresh start under a new name.
A decade later, this same woman, my friend (we’ll call her Theresa), was the Executive Director of a non-profit that maintains a collection of nondescript safe houses in quiet neighborhoods around the Phoenix area. I was with her for support as she stood before a closed session of the city council of a Phoenix-area suburb. She told her story and asked to use an abandoned storefront currently owned by the city. She proposed to build something that had never existed before, a one-stop location with all the services and resources necessary for a battered woman to break free. She received her approval and began implementing her plan. There was no ribbon-cutting and no fanfare when the one-stop opened its doors a year later. From the street, it was an unassuming clothing boutique storefront. But here, a woman who might be followed could walk in and never be seen again. In a separate space inside, volunteers are always standing by. Police officers who are personally vetted by Theresa herself, given her history, are ready to take a victim’s statement. Doctors wait to assess and treat physical harm. Therapists are there to evaluate psychological damage and begin healing. There are child counselors if a victim has brought her children, and, most importantly, an unmarked, average-looking car is always waiting outside the back door, with a driver ready to take the victim through a back alley to a shelter. Over the past 20 years, this average-looking storefront has been a portal to freedom for thousands of women in Arizona.
While Theresa was recovering in the original shelter, she asked about the older woman who had given her the bag that night at McDonald’s. No one knew who she was. The shelter has volunteers come in periodically, and they always have a stack of cards available for volunteers and supporters to take if they see someone who might need help. No one could put the finger on who that one woman might have been.
It was a small action the older woman took that night. She could have misread the situation completely, but she did it anyway. The unknown woman’s small act had a ripple effect that changed my friend Theresa’s entire life and has since helped thousands of women. Every action matters. Like a small pebble makes a ripple, even a very small action can have huge significance.
Read Lauren’s Whitepaper on The Nine Essentials of Significant Leadership.