Angels Community Outreach, a nonprofit in Gloucester County that helps unsheltered and in-need families, was started by a 12-year-old girl who had once been homeless herself. When Katelyn Darrow was small, she fled her home with her sisters and mother to escape domestic violence. A few years later, a house fire left them homeless.
Yet those bleak years, during which her family was supported by the local community, inspired Katelyn, at age 12, to start Angels Community Outreach, a Pitman-based nonprofit, in 2009.
Photo: Courtesy of Elissa Darrow
Angels, which started out as a clothing closet, provides food, clothing, baby and school supplies, toiletries, pet food, and more to about 25,000 low-income area residents each year. Some clients live in the same domestic violence shelter that once housed the Darrow family.
“It’s heartwarming to help residents at the same domestic-violence shelter that once assisted my family,” she says.
Since Katelyn left for UCLA in 2015, the nonprofit has been run by her mother, Elissa Darrow, with about 30 volunteers. Their work is funded by grants, fundraisers and donations.
Elissa’s recent diagnosis of incurable pulmonary fibrosis hasn’t stopped her. “Every one of us has the power to lift someone out of their darkest moments,” she says. “And I truly believe that when we give, we heal.”
[RELATED: Nonprofit Helps Furnish Homes for the Formerly Homeless]
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