About Us

Absolutely, Caryn. Here’s a polished “Background / Our Story” website page draft for Hope to Shine Iowa that builds from your text, sounds warm + credible, and sets you up to introduce those 8 steps as your community-designed roadmap.

Background: Our Story

Hope to Shine Iowa began with a friendship and a shared commitment to community.

In 2017, Lilian Okech and Caryn Kelly met as fellow business owners and single mothers working hard to build stable, meaningful lives for our families. Over time, our conversations kept circling back to the same truth: women are powerful leaders in their homes, workplaces, and communities, but too often they are navigating systems that were not built with them in mind.

After the pandemic, Lilian knew it was time to do more. Families were reeling from isolation, economic disruption, and widening gaps in belonging and opportunity, especially for immigrant and refugee women. We saw neighbors with incredible strength and talent, yet limited access to support, networks, and leadership pathways.

In response, we established Hope to Shine Iowa as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in 2022 with a simple but bold purpose:

To develop the potential of women as leaders in their homes, workplaces, and communities.

Centering women’s lived experience

From the very beginning, Hope to Shine Iowa has been built around one belief:
Those closest to the challenges are closest to the solutions.

In the spring of 2023, Hope to Shine Iowa gathered diverse women from across our community to share their ideas, stories, and hopes for the future. We met for a series of workshops where women identified what was needed, what was missing, and what was already working, using a human-centered design approach.

We chose human-centered design because we believe meaningful change happens when people with lived experience are not treated as “participants” in someone else’s program, but instead as co-creators of new systems, structures, and opportunities.

This process helped us clarify our values and direction. It also helped us move from big dreams to real action.

A community-designed roadmap

At the end of our time together, we identified eight key steps that Hope to Shine Iowa could take to create lasting impact for women and families in our community:

(Insert your 8 steps here in a clean bulleted format.)

This roadmap continues to guide our work today. Whether through community learning, leadership development, workforce programming, or opportunities to build relationships across difference, Hope to Shine Iowa is committed to creating spaces where women can lead, connect, and thrive.

Because when women shine, families grow stronger. Workplaces become healthier. Communities become more welcoming.
And Iowa becomes a better place for all of us.

If you’d like, I can also:

1. write the 8 steps section in a beautiful web format (with headings + icons),

2. create a shorter version for your homepage, and/or

3. rewrite this in a tone that feels more “funders + civic leaders” (slightly more formal, same heart).