 Anybody can rebuild their life, one day at a time, one step at a time, and over the course of time, those good decisions compounded and brought her to where she is today. I had two life events that I didn't deal with very well, I had two deaths in my family. I became really addicted to alcohol, and then when that didn't work anymore, I started using drugs, and it was a time when I found myself at a shelter run by the Salvation Army. She once said to me, if my mentor or my coach would have said, to get out of these addictions you need to take a peanut and push it with your nose down Assembly Street, I'd have done it. And that compassion and passion has transferred over to her work at the Salvation Army in the City of Columbia and the success that she's had in helping people navigate out of those addictions and homelessness. I think her impact was one of great influence with the unsheltered. They trusted her. So if Melanie was to communicate something with them, they honored that. And so as I transitioned from someone who needed that help to a person who was wanting to help somebody else, I could think of my experiences and I could know right away that that person's family life was probably pretty rocky. And that person probably couldn't work because they might not even have a photo ID, you know? There's some basics we need to do here. She was compassionate about the people that she served. She did everything from the heart and it wasn't a job for her. We interact with hundreds of cases in a year. So you take 15 years as the director and then more years prior to that, multiplying that by hundreds. But that's a lot of people who have benefited from Melanie's expertise, her compassion, her passion to get people off the street and into permanent housing and stay in that permanent housing. We have youth programs and programs for children that I have been involved with and I just am so happy about. And reading skills are so important for young ones in elementary school. Hey Melanie, I love you and I appreciate all the work that you have done and I know that in your retirement, the Lord is going to bless you with great favor.