38. Katie Bunnell with 'Live Your Dream Foundation' and Helping Single Mothers with Their Education

For the podcast this week I had the opportunity to talk with Katie Bunnell, co-founder and President of the Live Your Dream Foundation. The foundation awards scholarships to single mothers in Utah to help them complete their education so they can better provide for their families. Their scholarships can be used at any university, college, or technical school.

In this episode, Katie shares her own story of becoming a single mother and the perseverance it took for her to be able to finish her college degree. With the help of some of her family members, Katie then decided she wanted to start a foundation to help other single mothers be successful with their education journey. Along with the financial assistance they provide, 'Live Your Dream' has also cultivated a community that provides support and enrichment for single mothers and their families throughout Utah.

Listen to the podcast to learn more about this incredible non-profit and the good work they do!

Links mentioned in the episode:
Live Your Dream Website
Live Your Dream Instagram
Live Your Dream Facebook
Katie's Email: Katie@Liveyourdreamfoundation.org

Follow the podcast on social media:
Do Something More Instagram
Do Something More Facebook

Transcript

Melissa: You're listening to the Do Something More podcast. And this is episode 38 with Katie Bunnell from the Live Your Dream Foundation, helping single mothers with their education. Welcome to the Do Something More podcast, a service oriented show where we highlight the helpers who inspire us all to do something more. I'm your host, Melissa Draper. Thank you so much for being here.

Melissa: Welcome to another episode of the podcast, and I'm looking forward to this interview.

Melissa: And learning more about the Live Your Dream Foundation.

Melissa: But first, I would like to introduce.

Melissa: My guest for this week.

Melissa: She is the founder of that foundation, Katie Bennell.

Melissa: Katie, welcome to the show.

Katie: Oh, thank you so much. It's good to be here.

Melissa: Why don't we just start off by having you introduce a little bit about yourself and then I know your story is part of the reasons that your.

Melissa: Foundation got started, so you can tell.

Melissa: Us a little bit about that as well.

Katie: Yeah, for sure. So I grew up here in Utah County, and I've got four kids, three girls and a boy. We've got my daughter, she's 18, and we've got my son, that's four. So we've got two families going on in my family big range. Yeah, it's been a blast to be a mom. I've loved it. It's something that I was excited to be a mom. I'm juggling being a mom and the Live Your Dream foundation. And then actually, I do hair on the side. I started doing hair back in 2003 after I went to hair school after college, and so I have lots going on in my world. But how the Live Your Dream Foundation got started was back in 2005. I got married in 2002 to my neighbor. He was what I thought was the cool guy in the neighborhood. Right. He was four years older than me, so I kind of looked up to him and just thought he was really awesome. And then after high school, we went to Lake Powell with my family, and my brother brought our neighbor boy, and from there we started a relationship and we immediately connected and fell in love and started dating. After that Lake Powell trip and we dated for about a year, I realized what a best friend was. He treated me really good and we were just dear, dear friends and had so much fun together. When we were together and we got married in 2002, we got a small home and turned it into a Duplex, and we traveled and we played coed softball, and we just had a lot of fun together. He was going to school why I was going to hair school and anyways, just had the best time together. Sadly, he suffered with migraine headaches. He'd suffered with them from the time he was nine years old, and his family had tried everything to try and help him with those migraines. So when we got married, I didn't realize how bad the migraines were until we were married. And seeing him sick often, he would be throwing up in the morning and then head off to school or work. He wasn't the kind of person who he would let anything stop him. That's something that I really admired him. And then we had our first child, Callie, in 2005. We were very proud parents. And then one morning, he said that he was going to something for work, and so I needed to wake him up. And I went to go wake him up that morning, and he didn't wake up. And I was panicking. I didn't know what to do. Luckily, we had moved next door to his parents. His family just love his family. Living next door was a dream of ours to be able to raise our kids next to them. And anyways, his family came over that morning to try and help me. I called 911. Me and my father in law gave CPR. I had done it for the first time that morning, giving breaths to my husband. Why? My father in law did compressions. And anyways, we did that until the paramedics came. And then I was just in the next room praying and praying and praying that we would get a miracle with his mom. And unfortunately, that didn't happen. And it rocked my whole world. I was now a new mom of a three month old daughter, and I didn't know how I was going to provide for her, which is completely devastating. So that was a point in my life of, what am I going to do with my life, right? I had no idea. I grieved for about a year. I ran a marathon with my father in law and just I had to move out of my home because I couldn't afford it anymore. Luckily for me, I had a lot of family support, and my dad was able to help me get into a home down the street from my in laws, so I still was able to be close. And my mother in law said, what do you think about going back to school, going to college? Because I didn't have any college. I'd gone to hair school. And when I had had my daughter, I had quit my job and I was going to be a stay at home mom. And so I didn't have a job when he passed. And so I was scared to go to college. For some reason, I didn't believe that I could do it. I thought that that's what smart people did. And so I decided to give it a go. And I took two classes with my mother in law because she said she'd go with me at UVU. And after I took those classes, I was like, I absolutely can do this. And I ended up going, taking, like, 18 plus credits every semester. I didn't stop summer semester, and I got my bachelor's degree in two and a half years, business and psychology. It was an integrated studies major. I had planned on maybe going into social work and getting my master's and becoming a therapist. But after I graduated college, my sister came to me and she said, what do you think about starting a scholarship for single moms in Utah for education? Because when I was going to, there wasn't resources available. I remember I was trying to get help with childcare. They told me to go to one place, so I went there and I couldn't get help there because they would say, go to this other place, and the other place would say, go to that other place. So I kind of palmed with no help. And so when my sister came to me, I was elated because I was like, that's what I wanted to do when I was old, right. When I was established and maybe had worked my whole life and had some money that I could give back. And so her and my father helped. And so we're the co founders and started the foundation to give scholarships to single moms in Utah that want to gain any type of education to increase their earning potential to better provide for their families. So that's what we do today. We've given out over $450,000 in scholarships, and we just gave 38 scholarships for fall semester. Anyways, we've given close to 300 scholarships. So I'm super proud of the work that we continue to do. We've created a Live Your dream family at Live Your Dreams. We give scholarships, but we also help with Christmas or Thanksgiving, Mother's Day, back to school for their kids. So we create a community of love and hope for these families while they're going to school to be able to help them accomplish their goals of whatever it is that they want to do to help provide for their family.

Melissa: Yeah, that's great. And wow, what an amazing story.

Melissa: All of the experiences that you've been.

Melissa: Through and then the tenacity to go and get a degree in that amount of time. I just think that truly shows your grit and hard work, I'm sure. And then to take that experience now, to turn around and help others that are in similar situations, for sure.

Katie: Well, I appreciate you saying that. Yeah. What I found is when you go through hard things, when you can turn your pain into some kind of purpose, it allows you to heal and it also makes whatever you've gone through worth it. Right, right. I would never wish what I went through on anyone, and I would never want to go through it again. But I'm grateful for the lessons that it taught me and for the people that I'm able to help now from my experiences.

Melissa: Yeah, definitely. Well, I would love to just hear a little bit of some of the logistics after that amazing story you shared. What is that process? How do single mothers find you and what's the process that they go through to get that support? And how can they use then those funds that they get to continue their education?

Katie: For sure. So we help any single mother in Utah that wants to gain an education. They just need to have a GED or graduate from high school. So these moms need a GED or they need to have graduated from high school. And then they go onto our website liveyourdreamfoundation.org and they can apply for the scholarship as long as they're a single mom or in the process of a divorce or a situation that they need our help, where they're raising their kids alone and they can receive the scholarship more than once. The reapplying is much easier the first time around when they apply, they have somebody fill out a letter of recommendation and then they have to show us that they're going to a specific school and then they write their story. And a lot of people have said that that's been hard to write their story, but actually really healing for them to be able to write it down and share with us. And then they share with us their financials and we look at all of that information and then we select a handful of applicants and we interview them as a board. And those interviews are incredible. We love meeting with the women. A lot of the time. The first time they come in, they'll be super nervous. They'll be looking down low confidence, scared to death of what to say or do or what to wear, right? And then we interview them again a year later, six months later. And it's amazing. Once they've started the process and now they're in the middle of the process, the empowerment and the confidence that they gain by this journey of education, they feel confident that they can now possibly provide for their family on the goal, with their goal of gaining an education. And then once they've graduated, that confidence of now I can provide for my family. And it's just amazing to see that journey as they gain their education.

Melissa: Yeah, most definitely.

Katie: It's hard and it's not all rainbows and butterflies as they're going to school. It's really challenging. And when their kids watch their mom go through hard things, we found that there's research that shows that the likelihood of the children gaining an education substantially goes up. And we see that in what we do. We see the kids going, getting their college education in high school because they saw mom do it and they believe that they can do it. And they understand that situations arises that they may need to have an education as well. So it's a really cool process that these women go through when they go through our program. And when they learn about us, they learn about us at the college. They may learn about us through another nonprofit organization. We do our best to spread the words through the entire state of Utah. As long as they live in Utah, they can go to school outside of Utah. We just like to be able to meet them and develop that relationship and help them in any way possible that we can. We also provide mentoring while they're going to school. Got a volunteer that does that to just give them somebody that they can talk to and somebody that can be there for them if they need to while they're going to school as well.

Melissa: Yeah, that's great. And I definitely agree with you. It's wonderful to be able to get those tools and education to help improve your situation. But there's something about that process that I think brings confidence in realizing the things that you can do. When I first started working out of college, I actually worked at UBSC. It was UBSC then. It's UVU now. And part of my job was working with I saw many single mothers as well, and non traditional students. And I had similar experiences, as you just explained, where many there was a myriad of reasons why they were finding themselves back on a college campus and looking to get a degree. But as you first meet them and being almost lost or wondering and as they found some direction, as they discovered some of their gifts and talents and how they could use those in a career and all of those things. It was amazing to see the confidence and to just see the good things that they could do and go forward from there, for sure.

Katie: And we see that. It makes me feel so happy that you see that too, because it's just amazing to see these women persevere when they're going through hard things and sometimes they feel, like, alone and that they can't do it. And that's my wife or what I do is I want them to feel like they've got cheerleaders behind them, believing in them and knowing that they can do anything that they put their mind to. And a lot of them say it's not the financial help that live your dream brings it's that support and that belief that they can do it. And so there's just so many I'm helping these moms, but they're helping me so much by the good work that they're doing.

Melissa: Yeah. And knowing that someone believes in you enough to support you financially, I think sometimes that alone can be a boost.

Katie: Yeah.

Melissa: Great. Well, do you have any specific stories or experiences that you'd like to share that kind of illustrate more of those women and situations you've been able to help?

Katie: Yeah, so I've got so many stories over the years of people that we've helped. There's one story from the very beginning that I always go back to, and there was a family that had six kids, and it was really cool. There was another single mom that had a home, and she moved in with that single mom and lived in the basement. And to this day, they still live together and they've helped each other raise their kids. While one was going to school, the one mom would help carpool and drive and get kids to different activities. But I had another single mom that did the same thing. There was one that was living in a home and she brought in the other single mom and then they helped each other with their kids. And I just think it's amazing when you serve others the trickle effect. Right. So what I found is when we help a single mom, other family, they want to give back however they can to help another family. I had another single mom that she worked at Westlake High School and she became Alpine School District's Teacher of the Year. And she helped so many kids. And I just, she says live your dream, gave her hope and belief that she could do it. And so that's why she ended up feeling like she could go to school and to see that we helped her. And then now she has helped thousands of kids at Westlake High School. Right. And so that's what I always go back to is know we help somebody with nursing. Well, think about that trickle effect of all the patients that now they've helped.

Melissa: Right, right.

Katie: So it's just amazing when you give back and you know, you think you may be helping one person or one family, but you're doing much more than that when you're helping one person. That's for me, the biggest takeaway with what we've done is that we're not just helping one family or one person, we're helping the whole community here in Utah. And it's amazing to watch that happen and to see these families just by gaining their education, what that brings to the world.

Melissa: That trickle down effect is pretty powerful to see and then to see, as you mentioned, what's being trickled down to their children and then their children will go on and take those things as well.

Katie: Yes. One of the families that I spoke about, the first one that had the six kids, all of their kids in high school, many of them, I shouldn't say many of them got their associate's degree and just got going and got motivated to gain that education. And it makes me just so proud because I know that it was that mom gaining her education when she could have felt like it was something she couldn't do and not done it, and then who knows what would have happened. But because she gained that education, her example to her kids just benefited them so much. And I'm just so proud. The women that we help, because they're rock stars in my mind. They empower so many people just by what they feel is small act of going to school, what that does to their family and the community.

Melissa: Yes, most definitely. Well, you mentioned at the beginning, how you are a busy woman running this foundation and being a mother to your own family. And as you talked about for many of these women going back to school, it's not easy. There's hurdles that you have to cross. Have you had some of those own experiences yourself as you've put this foundation together and got things going? What are some of those challenges, maybe, or how have you been able to navigate challenges as they've popped up? For sure.

Katie: Yeah. So when we first started, we were planning on we didn't even know what we were doing right. We just became a nonprofit. We weren't a 501 yet, so we started with five KS back in the day in 2010 when we started. And five k's was very popular here in Utah, what people were doing to raise money. So we gave a few scholarships away in the very beginning, and we were so proud of it. We thought it was amazing. And then we decided that it was pretty saturated, so we pivoted and we decided to do a raft and run. So we did a raft and run where we did five k down Provoke Canyon, and then they raft down Provo River, and then they did a five k to the end of the race in Provo Canyon. And that was super family friendly. But we weren't raising a lot of money. It was so fun. It was probably one of my most fun events as far as what we've done for fundraising. But we were raising enough money, and so we had to pivot, we had to stop doing something that was so much fun. We weren't raising enough money. And there was so much logistics with that event as far as because we were all volunteers, we didn't have any paid employees. And like I said, I have a family that I have to raise myself. And inside businesses, it's a lot of work. And so we started doing golf tournaments as our fundraiser. And that's been awesome. Our first golf tournament, we raised $10,000. We thought that that was amazing, and it really, truly was. And so we've had different times in the foundations where we needed to pivot to raise more money, to be able to help more people. And I would say that that has been the biggest challenge. Some people say there's 10,000 nonprofits in Utah, some people say eleven, but there's a lot of good being done here in Utah. And so getting donations and funding for what we do is really challenging. And so one of the things I'm most proud of that we did when we pivoted was we were raising money and then we were giving it away every year and starting over. And that's pretty stressful from a foundation's perspective. And so we decided to start an endowment fund. And that fund we started a few years ago. We have just over a half million dollars in that account, which has been a lot of hard work, and our goal is to hit $3 million, and then we can give 3% of that out so we can know that we have $100,000 to give away each year from that account. And so that's been something that makes me excited, because I know that we're going to be able to give scholarships for generations to come. This isn't going to stop when I'm gone. And then once we get to that point, we'll just be able to feel like we don't have to rely on fundraisers or donors as much. Of course, we'll always need some support in that way, but the biggest hardship is raising money, I would say. But knowing that we have this endowment fund that we're working on while we give scholarships twice a year, it really makes me excited about the future. I was working so much day and night, staying up at all late hours of the night, and last year we had a donor come forward and say that they would pay for overhead costs for Live Your Dream, and we were able to hire a part time employee last February. And Ashley Berry is my director of Operations at Live Your Dream, and she has changed my world, and every day I thank her. And so with this endowment fund, too, we're hoping to be able to be able to pay her and if we need any other employees to keep this going for generations. And so I'm super excited about it. As donors, we're able to say, you can donate 100% to overhead cost, you can donate 100% to scholarships, you can donate 100% to the endowment fund, or you can donate 100% to our service projects. And so we can be very with our donors, where they're donating and where it's going.

Melissa: Yeah, that's great. They can choose where they want to have that impact with those funds. And I love that you share all of those realities because that is a reality of running a nonprofit and wanting to do good and trying to figure out all those logistics that can sometimes take up that space in our mind. So I love to hear some of the process and things that you've gone through.

Katie: Yeah, for sure. It's been so much fun and so rewarding, and all the hardship along the way has been worth it.

Melissa: Definitely. Well, this has been a great conversation. Katie, thank you so much for coming on to share some of these experiences. I would just love to have you end with any advice or encouragement that you want to give to a single mother or anyone that needs some hope and encouragement to keep going, or even anyone that's interested in starting something like you have from the hard experiences they've had to go and help others. What advice or encouragement would you have?

Katie: So the advice that I'd have if somebody wants to start a nonprofit is look and find other nonprofits that are doing the similar thing that you want to do. And if there's not anything like that, then consider starting a nonprofit. But there are probably nonprofits that you can work with that already have a 501. So like I said, we didn't have a 501 C three when we started, but four years in, we got a 501 C three. And it's a lot of work to get there, and it can be expensive depending on how you go about it. So just look into the nonprofit world and find a nonprofit that fits within what you want to do and go talk to them and get educated on what they're doing and maybe working with them. As far as single moms in Utah or throughout the world, I want them to know that they are not alone, that there's people out there that care about them. Remember that today is just a day and tomorrow is a new beginning. And that if there's anything that you ever need in life, please reach out because I know it can get lonely. And I know that sometimes in the grind of being a mom and having kids, it feels like you're doing the same thing over and over and over. One of the biggest things that I learned a few years ago was I wasn't doing anything for me. I didn't know that that was something that people did. And I decided in my daily grind that I was going to say, I'm doing this for me. So whether it's getting a drink of water, I would say, I'm going to go do this for me. If I'm going to go get a pedicure, I'm going to go do this for me. But it can be as small as I'm going to walk to mailbox by myself for me. And so if you start putting yourself in your daily grind, then I think that it makes you feel a little bit more taken care of. And that's really helped me in my life, and so I encourage everyone to do that, not even only single moms, but just people in general. Do things for yourself each day. And when you label it that way, I think it changes how your day goes. And then lastly, just having gratitude in your life. I think when life gets hard, it's easy to go down the mindset of life's hard and when we can remember what we're grateful for and things to be grateful for, even if it seems impossible. After my husband died, I could have said it's impossible, but having my daughter there in my life was something that made me have to get up every single day and take care of her. And that was a blessing in my life. So sometimes it's just the sun is shining or I was able to wake up that day, but there's so much good in this world when we look for it.

Melissa: That's great. Those are all great words of advice, and we just had an episode on gratitude, so that's a perfect thing to share and end on. And I would also love to have you share where others can find you if they're interested in learning more about your foundation and donating or I've even seen on your Instagram. At times you have others share some of their talents or skills with the single mothers you work with. So how can anyone find you if they're interested in learning more about what you do? For sure.

Katie: I would love a follow on Instagram or Facebook. And our handle is at Live Your Dream Foundation, Utah. You'll be able to see what we're up to. We're very active on those platforms, even LinkedIn. Also, if you can go to our website liveyourdreamfoundation.org. And lastly, you can email me, Katie. Katie@liveyourdreamfoundation.org, that's great.

Melissa: I will put links to all of those in the show notes. Thanks so much, Katie. It's been great talking to you and learning more about Live Your Dream.

Katie: Thank you so much.

Melissa: That concludes my interview with Katie Benell with the Live Your Dream Foundation. And she started that off with that touching story of losing her husband, persevering and going back to school so that she could provide for her and her daughter. And then taking those experiences and deciding to use them as motivation to start her foundation and to use that as a way to make a difference in the lives of others going through similar hard things. And I loved how she shared that they've really created a community with her foundation and that many times it's more than just the financial help that they're giving through these scholarships to single mothers, but it's also being a place that gives them the support that they need and the belief in them that they can do it. And that's really powerful. I think many times is, as she said, more than just the financial support, but knowing that someone believes in you and wants to see you succeed can mean so much. And then my other favorite thing that she shared from that interview was the trickle effect that the good work their foundation does has. And how many times you might think when you're helping someone or assisting someone, that you're just helping that person, or in her case even just helping that family. And while it does make a difference for those people, it does make a difference for the children and families of these single mothers. It goes beyond that.

Melissa: And she gave the example of the.

Melissa: Woman they helped who was a teacher and all the lives that she's been able to touch because she was able to go and get that education and use her gifts and talents or someone that might go into nursing was the other example she gave, or really in any direction. It's just amazing. And that's kind of been a theme with the last couple of episodes, is that it's amazing to really contemplate the trickle effect. That service and doing good works can have, it really does help not just individuals, but an entire community. So I'm so grateful that Katie could come on today that she was so open with sharing her own very personal story and then shared some of the ups and downs her foundation has gone through and some of the experiences that they've had. So if you'd like to learn more about the Live Your Dream foundation, there's many ways to get involved if it's something that it was inspiring to you. There was donating that she mentioned, but there's also other ways. So I'll include links to their website and to their social media channels and I'll also leave Katie's email that she mentioned there as well. So I love the final advice and hope that she gave for single mothers, but really, anyone that's facing a tough situation, to take time for yourself and to know that tomorrow is another day. So, great interview. Thank you so much for being here. I'll see you next time. Close.