We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful LoLo Roberts. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with LoLo below.

LoLo, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. One of the most important things small nonprofits can do, in our view, is to serve underserved communities that are ignored by giant corporations who often are just creating mass-market, one-size-fits-all solutions. Talk to us about how you serve an underserved community.

Last fall, I was blessed with an opportunity to serve a beautiful group of seniors in Plano. Grateful Gratitude provided a Thanksgiving celebration for a 55 and older community that has partnered with my church. This year, they needed help providing activities and celebration meals for their residents. These residents even though this is a 55 and older community, most were 70-90 years old. I found this in many 55 and older communities; they are genuinely independent senior living communities.

We served a lovely Thanksgiving meal with all the trimmings and played some engaging games for entertainment. I sat with many of our guests that day and learned some alarming news. (0% of the 45 guests in attendance shared with me that they lived on a very fixed income and struggled to have enough food. I heard they received SNAP (food stamp) benefits ranging from $16 to $74 monthly. I asked one lady how she survived on this tiny amount of assistance. She told me she would buy chicken thighs, dry rice or beans, and some bullion and boil it to make a chicken stew that she eats all month. She would have family members give her other groceries but typically staple items for her pantry.

I knew immediately I had to help this group of people. Grateful Gratitude started offering small food blessing bags twice a month to 40 residents in this community. I bring fresh bread, produce, pasta, canned vegetables, and a dessert. This is not a lot of food, but enough for several days.

In February, I met with Amazing Grace Food Pantry in Wylie because I heard they had a “senior” box they shared, which was a smaller box that had a nice variety of food and was more accessible for seniors to carry. I did find out on my Thanksgiving visit that many of the residents did qualify for pantry assistance, but either didn’t drive, or the box was 80 pounds of food. This was too heavy and too much food for them.

When I visited the pantry to see the “senior” boxes, the founder suggested we make Grateful Gratitude a delivery partner. By doing this, Grateful Gratitude could pick up the smaller boxes of food and deliver them onsite to the community. This was an unbelievable suggestion and a huge blessing for me. I only struggled with having a large enough vehicle to transport 40 boxes of food, fresh produce, fresh bread, and giant boxes of meat or frozen foods.

I reached out to one of my partners, Tracey Cline, Executive Director at The Credit Union of Texas Charitable Foundation, for help. One of their pillars of support is food insecurity. She immediately said, “Yes, we can help transport the food from Wylie to Plano!”

Beginning April 11, 2024, Grateful Gratitude, in partnership with Amazing Grace Food Pantry and CUTX Charitable Foundation, will provide food onsite to these 70-90-year-old food-insecure senior adults.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I founded Grateful Gratitude in 2018 as a business to be a motivational speaker focusing on practicing more gratitude. The business soon filed to be a nonprofit for two reasons. First, I didn’t have many speaking engagements. Secondly, I felt God lead me into a position of serving instead of earning.

Shortly after I dropped the speaking aspect and received my 501c3 nonprofit status, I was contacted by a local victims’ advocate from our police department. She had survivors of trauma and violent crimes that she felt needed prayer and faith, and in her position, she was unable to pray with them per policy. This launched the last 6 years of serving and providing HOPE for others in crisis.

I have worked in many communities in this ministry, from our homeless friends to single moms, victims of violent crime, and now my sweet senior community. I am a resource for those who have lost HOPE or need to be drawn back to God.

I take no salary for my work; every donation goes to serve our most vulnerable in times of crisis. This may be purchasing a prepaid phone for a homeless person trying to reconnect with family or offering utility assistance to a single mom. I am a one-person nonprofit, causing a ripple effect of HOPE on around $20,000 yearly in donations.

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

I think I am like many people. If a situation didn’t apply to me personally (for example, homelessness or being a victim of crime), I ignored it. It didn’t affect me, so I didn’t worry about it. God wanted me to see those communities that didn’t affect me. He opened my eyes widely and thrust me in.

The first call from the police advocate was to come to the police department and sit with a victim of a violent crime. I share hand-carved hearts from Kenya that I call gratitude hearts. Each heart takes several hours to carve, and I pray over each one before I gift them. The purpose of holding the gratitude heart is to find something to be grateful for in every situation, no matter how difficult.

My advocate informed me that this first person I would sit with and share gratitude and heart with had witnessed a murder-suicide of a family member and his girlfriend. I looked up and said, “Really, God, this is how you want me to start this ministry?”. And He did. I realized that being a “HOPE Catalyst” was my calling, and I have never been more fulfilled in my life. By the way, I capitalize HOPE in honor of a young girl named HOPE, who passed away shortly after I founded Grateful Gratitude.

I do stand as an advocate for our vulnerable communities when I hear someone say the homeless are alcoholic drug addicts or that senior citizens should have worked hard to have a retirement account. They wouldn’t be in this situation if they thought ahead. Almost everyone I meet has a story just like you or I or is just in a short season of crisis. I have worked with homeless school teachers and women of domestic violence who never asked to be beaten. It’s an unfair statement.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I do use Facebook and Instagram to show pictures of a small part of the work I do in the community. I want to respect people’s privacy and always ask for permission to photograph someone first. I post on these platforms to show how one person can make a huge ripple effect and to help donors understand how their donations are being shared in many different communities in Collin County. I had an original page on Facebook for Grateful Gratitude that I lost control of when I had over 5,000 followers. I posted a daily scripture every morning at 7:11 am to encourage others. Facebook notified me that my account was locked and that I could no longer access it because someone had attempted to change the password multiple times. I started another personal page and moved on. The unfortunate thing about losing the ability to post is that many people from other countries would message me to pray for them or family members. This part is heartbreaking to me.

Contact Info:

• Website: gratefulgratitude11.com
• Instagram: GratefulGratitude
• Facebook: Laurie “LoLo” Roberts
• Linkedin: Laurie “LoLo” Roberts, CCP
• Youtube: Grateful Gratitude