[00:00:00] Deanna Kitchen: I am so honored to be joined today by Ashley Manning. Ashley is the heart behind Watch, love, grow, a beautiful mission, born from loss, love, and a desire to show up for others in some of the most. Difficult times, but in the most beautiful ways. Ashley, we're so, honored to get to be with you today. So excited to learn about your mission, watch, love, grow.
[00:00:26] Deanna Kitchen: Do you wanna start out with just sharing a little bit about you and what corner of the world you're growing kindness in?
[00:00:35] Ashley Manning: Yes, of course. Thank you. It's been a long time coming. I know we've been trying to get this scheduled and the timing is now perfect and right. And I am so grateful for you guys for sharing kindness. I appreciate that so much. I live here in Charlotte, North Carolina, and we have been here for almost 20 years.
[00:00:54] Ashley Manning: Actually. My husband and I moved here in 2006. We're both Pennsylvania natives. We met in college and we have four children. 14, almost 13. 10 and seven. Three boys, one girl. And we have a very busy life here in Charlotte. But we're very blessed. And that's just a little bit about me. I started a flower shop back in c and this whole project grew out of that, but before that, I was a
[00:01:19] Ashley Manning: stay at home mom.
[00:01:20] Deanna Kitchen: tell us more about the beginning days of Watch Love Grow. What inspired you? To get started , and how did you get started? And I eventually will get to talk about where you are now and the work you're doing now, but I'd love to hear a little bit about how that seed was even. Yeah. How was that
[00:01:36] Deanna Kitchen: seed planted and what did it look like at first?
[00:01:39] Ashley Manning: We have a really big church across the street called Calvary. It's like actually shaped like a crown. And it used to be pink. I mean it's massive. It's like acres in the middle of a city, which is unique. But all my kids went to preschool there. So my young, my oldest Tyson twos, threes, fours, tk, kindergarten then my daughter the same. And our third child was starting his, four, his four day fours. So I went and met his teacher. Her name was Kathy Evans. And she said, just, have you guys been here? And I had, we had never had her before, but I recognized her and I think she recognized me. And I said, yeah, Tyson just finished kindergarten with Mrs.
[00:02:18] Ashley Manning: Keast. And she said, well, oh, did you hear Dorot? Husband's cancer came back. It's not good. And he had been sick when she was teaching Tyson and we, he kind of got through that, but then it had come back
[00:02:31] Ashley Manning: She said he's probably not gonna make it. And she said in the next breath, I
[00:02:34] Ashley Manning: also lost
[00:02:35] Ashley Manning: my husband to cancer. And she just looked at me like you could see the pain in her saying that, , I fought that battle also and. And, then of course I said, I'm so sorry to hear that, and I'll go talk to Mrs. Keys and I'm sorry about your loss. And just go, through the motions of the introduction on that first day.
[00:02:57] Ashley Manning: I have at that time a baby and then we're like a circus that travels all together. So she was always entertained by, flying in on two wheels, strollers, babies, and, just a really sweet teacher. So at Valentine's Day that year I was out. We have a Trader Joe's down the street also, and I thought, I'm gonna make her flowers. Not just get her a chocolate bar, but.
[00:03:19] Ashley Manning: She must be so sad today. Like I just thought that, I don't know. I mean, it wasn't really preconceived. I just was in the store and I bought some flowers and I like to do that. And I'm kind of not like cheap per se, but like I know that I can make something a lot nicer myself and what I would probably order. So I, I made her flowers and I gave it to her and I said, I know that today's a hard day for you and I just want you to have these. And I'm sorry that it's a hard day. And she cried a little and I probably did too. And then we just left and
[00:03:51] Ashley Manning: the next month the world shut down. For COVID. So in March, we didn't go back to preschool.
[00:03:58] Ashley Manning: The teachers at the end of the year in June came by. They did drive-bys where they returned anything that had been left at the school. They waved goodbye, from their cars and it was a sweet way. But that was the end of the year and she got out of her car, even though like she said,
[00:04:13] Ashley Manning: are you comfortable with that?
[00:04:14] Ashley Manning: I'm like, yes, it's totally fine. And she said you
[00:04:17] Ashley Manning: just have no idea what that meant to me. And she was so sincere about it. And here
[00:04:24] Ashley Manning: you're thinking like, oh, that was just some flowers. , Did it really mean that much to you? But I think seeing her and meeting her, like in her grief Was Was just what she needed that day. So fast forward a few months later, it's now the fall. I'm homeschooling three kids and I have the baby here. And our schools did not go back and I, we hired a nanny and for three days a week and I had finally , help for the first time, as a stay-at-home mom and I said, Johnny, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna start making flowers.
[00:04:58] Ashley Manning: And I had made some for a girlfriend for a birthday and she was like, these are really good. You're good at this. So, I kind of just was like, let's do it. At that time everybody was doing these pop-up markets outside. I don't know if that happened on your neck, in your neck of the woods, but like somebody would host it in somebody's driveway and local vendors, candle makers, bracelet makers, anybody that was selling things that now couldn't sell them was selling them on tables, set up pretty with music and things and driveways.
[00:05:28] Ashley Manning: And so my girlfriend was having one, she has a company called Amen Jewelry. She said, Ash just make like 10 arrangements and come. So I did. And that was kind of the start of pretty things. I started a little floral shop. My house is really unique because it's old and it's been added onto several times.
[00:05:44] Ashley Manning: So there's actually like an office suite in the house that was my husband's office in a gym that we turned into my studio. And he moved into the nursery, which is irrelevant, but he has an office still like it. We didn't totally kick him out, but I. As busy as can be. Like we'd get done with homeschooling, I'd go to the market, I'd make all my orders, Johnny would help me like, with the house so that I was actually able to start this little business. And that year at Valentine's Day, it was my first year being a florist I just started thinking like, gosh, and it was very organic and it's still in my stories on my page, . Does anybody know? Any widows? Let's think about the people this year that maybe need love more than the people that have love. And it was just natural questions and people were like, yes. And they said, well, what if I donate a portion of my sales and organize it and we could collect money and you send me names and we'll deliver flowers to widows. And it was just like that. The names came in on text, email, Instagram, Facebook. Three different emails probably. And I didn't even have delivery addresses and I had to go back to those people, oh, where are these going?
[00:06:57] Ashley Manning: What, , get all the information. We did. I didn't even have a
[00:07:00] Ashley Manning: registration form or anything, and I went to social media again. I'm like, all right guys, I need help.
[00:07:07] Ashley Manning: Like the flowers are gonna come in, we have the money. We raised enough money and within three weeks we were ready to serve 125 people and it was completely organic. 125 the first year. My sister lives in Pittsburgh where Dick's Sporting Goods headquarters is, and it was a rainy Valentine's Week in Charlotte. Dick's, she called her friend and Dick's donated 10 canopy tents to us. And everybody in my neighborhood
[00:07:31] Ashley Manning: brought their fire pits, like their solo stoves 'cause it was freezing and raining. And also we were social distancing. , It was February, but a lot of people were so nervous. , People had masks on, were in the driveway.
[00:07:43] Ashley Manning: And. The right people just showed up. I didn't even know most of the people that came to volunteer, like my friends probably were like, oh Ashley, you're crazy. Like what are you doing? So it was a lot of people that didn't know me that great that came. And the cool thing is six years
[00:07:59] Ashley Manning: later, they're still the ones that show up. Which I love, and it just really took off from there. The first year was, , when I look back at how far we've come with like technology and all these things, like I basically handed my phone to two girls that were under a tent and they said, well, where are the names of all these people? And I was like, well, here's a charger and my password to get in my phone is this. And like, you're gonna have to go in my Instagram and my Facebook. , I didn't even have a note section of the names. It just happened so fast. And they're like, oh, we're gonna kill you. Next year we're helping you with that part of it because it just, it life was moving and I was taking my own orders and like, it just was going, and it ended up being fine, but it wasn't
[00:08:43] Ashley Manning: very organized to say the
[00:08:44] Deanna Kitchen: but you started.
[00:08:45] Ashley Manning: And
[00:08:46] Ashley Manning: from there, it's just
[00:08:47] Deanna Kitchen: happened. I think sometimes,
[00:08:48] Ashley Manning: Yes, I listened like that. Little tug.
[00:08:52] Deanna Kitchen: I'm so sorry. There's like a slight delay, which is weird.
[00:08:55] Deanna Kitchen: I'm noticing this happens when I record when, and I think it's more of a Riverside thing. If it's on, one's on cell phone, so I apologize, can I get that kinda like hang time a little bit? So I'm so sorry for interrupting you.
[00:09:05] Deanna Kitchen: That's
[00:09:05] Ashley Manning: I'm not getting it though on my end.
[00:09:07] Deanna Kitchen: the last time this happened, it was a cell, it was a cell phone thing, so I think it's something with Riverside. And the recording was totally beautiful. Like it's only when we're, it's live. It's only happening live, which is so
[00:09:17] Deanna Kitchen: weird. But if I interrupt you, I'm so sorry. Just 'cause there's a little like that leg end.
[00:09:22] Deanna Kitchen: But what I wanna say is just how beautiful, actually, I've had the privilege of hearing so many inspiring stories about people who said yes. Like they said yes to that little tug on their heart and look what it became. And I love that you just leaped in both feet first and you've built the airplane on the fly.
[00:09:42] Deanna Kitchen: So you are year six now with this mission. Can you share us, can you share with us a little bit more about how it's grown and changed over the years?
[00:09:58] Ashley Manning: Sure. The second year we were doing it, I had a little accident at home. One of my children, my third little guy was, playing in the playroom, kind of like fake punching. And he punched me in my eye. And , it caused a whole array of damage, that vitriol hemorrhage. He, the, it caused a lot of damage.
[00:10:20] Ashley Manning: Ended up. Having a retinal detachment. And then I have a real weird like disorder called PVR that every time they'd fix my retina it would read, detach. And that happened the first week of November and. So we're getting ready to have Val, the second outreach, and that's November. And then I had a big surgery for another detachment in December, right, like three days before Christmas.
[00:10:47] Ashley Manning: And it hurt. It was so bad. It hurt so bad. I could just I just would like light in my room. I couldn't even like come out and it's called a scleral buckle. I don't know why it hurts so bad. , Some people have more pain than others. But I could barely leave my room. I couldn't drive. Friends came over and wrapped Christmas presents for us, and I didn't know if I'd be able to do it that next year.
[00:11:10] Ashley Manning: Like I, it's three weeks, let's say before Valentine's Day. And I'm like I don't know if I can do this. I don't know if I have the stamina. Or the strength to even do it. And I was laying there the one night and I had, after the first year I had all these, desires and all these exciting things I was gonna do.
[00:11:26] Ashley Manning: And I just got, I was like, I can barely even hang on right now. But I made a reel, which I'd never made a reel on Instagram and from little videos from the year before. And like you said, I just put it out there like, here we go guys, we're doing this again. And, that was the commitment, that I made at that time.
[00:11:43] Ashley Manning: And by the grace of God, I literally was healthy enough to do this for like four weeks. The four weeks surrounding Valentine's Day of that whole year was the only four weeks I would've been healthy enough to do it. And we did it. Two weeks later I was back in the hospital with another surgery and, that's led to other complications down the road.
[00:12:01] Ashley Manning: I'm now permanently blind in my right eye. And that's a whole, nother story of all the things. But that year the news took a hold of it. I don't know how somebody wrote about it, like on people. And then somebody from the Today Show and somehow, I mean, we're on like the nighttime TV show with David Muir on
[00:12:22] Ashley Manning: a, B, C. I'm like, what in the heck? How is this happening? And it was just like God was saying, keep going. You can do it. You can do it. And that year, just one year later we did 400. Widows in Charlotte. That year also, my sister started the outreach in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and I believe, yeah, that was the only one that year.
[00:12:45] Ashley Manning: So we made it through that year. The following year we served 800 widows in Charlotte and we were still working outta my driveway. So it was kind of like a mess. People everywhere backing up the street, the police are out there. And an interesting thing is somebody one of the reporters said to me, he said, I bet your neighbors love this.
[00:13:07] Ashley Manning: And I was like,
[00:13:08] Ashley Manning: my neighbors are all
[00:13:09] Deanna Kitchen: yeah,
[00:13:10] Ashley Manning: actually,
[00:13:13] Deanna Kitchen: Isn't that what
[00:13:14] Ashley Manning: They were all there.
[00:13:15] Ashley Manning: We were parking in their driveways.
[00:13:18] Deanna Kitchen: right? Like if we don't, we're not watching, we're participating.
[00:13:26] Ashley Manning: Yes. So that was like really one of the moments that has stuck with me that, like the annoyance of the road being backed up or the people, the buses not being able to get through. Which, we didn't realize like, oh, this is so many people this year. We need like police to be like directing traffic.
[00:13:42] Ashley Manning: So then we got a police man. The following year we moved into another f into a facility for the first time. It's a park that's just a couple miles away that has like a, , like an area you could have weddings or parties. And we grew again that year. We did it again. We. The next year at that church.
[00:14:00] Ashley Manning: And then this year we worked out of my we worked out of the park. I'm sorry about that. We were at the park two years this past year. We were actually at my church which was awesome because we had a lot more flexibility. We didn't have to rent the space. So like we could use it during the week to kind of prepare where at the park, I'm paying to use it.
[00:14:18] Ashley Manning: And availability was different. So, each year we've also added new groups, . The third year. So the second year we had all that media attention. I get a call from a woman, we were at the beach for vacation and she said her name was Kaylene Jensen and she lived in Hutchinson, Minnesota. And she saw the project on the news and she was wondering if I would help her to start it in Minnesota. Of course I did. And her story's so sweet. She said, I'm just gonna find this lady's number and call her. And if she answers, I'm meant to do it. And she told me she really didn't like Valentine's Day, and I never really asked why. I figure she'll tell me someday why, but she now is serving, I mean, she just had her fourth year and served like 800 people in her community, in a
[00:15:03] Ashley Manning: little town in Minnesota. Pittsburgh launched, the second year and they've grown every year. We have an outreach in Buffalo, New York. We have an outreach in Nashville, Tennessee. We have one in Houston, Texas. And then this year we added Sun City, Florida, Chattanooga, Tennessee Winston Salem, North Carolina, Raleigh, North Carolina, Lancaster, South Carolina, and Columbia, South Carolina, all this year. We're growing and I feel like it's been at a pace that I can keep up with so far. Like I couldn't have done it all in the early years with, this is my first year of having all my
[00:15:42] Ashley Manning: kids at school all day. You know how that is, like the littlest one went to kindergarten. So, I used to have like. Drop 'em off at preschool, pick 'em up in three hours, then go get the other kids. So I'm just so excited about how it's grown and how natural it's all been and felt.
[00:16:00] Deanna Kitchen: It's hard. Absolutely incredible to see the power of one Yes. And how that ripples forward. I actually had no idea that you had launched in so many communities. I knew you guys were very active in Charlotte. No, I'd been
[00:16:17] Deanna Kitchen: following along, but obviously not close enough to recognize. Just how far the reach now is.
[00:16:24] Deanna Kitchen: I know that people who are listening, I'm gonna just jump in right now with this. I don't wanna wait till the end. How do people get involved? Like if they were listening and saying like, I wanted, I wanna be a part of something like this. I wanna do this in my community. How would they get connected and be able to do.
[00:16:44] Ashley Manning: Well, the truth is I'm still not like the most organized person in America, but I do my best. And social media for me has just been, I just do Instagram. Like I can't keep
[00:16:54] Ashley Manning: up with the Facebook and the Instagram myself. Maybe I'll get somebody to help me eventually, but if they
[00:16:59] Ashley Manning: follow along at Watch Love Grow Charlotte. That's the handle on Instagram. That's where I am gonna push out information. I have a website as well, watch love grow.org where there's gonna be information and I'm really excited, like the woman in Nashville that does the outreach. She did it for the third year this year. And her son watched her, his mom and dad struggle through a lot of the things that are kind of tough around it.
[00:17:27] Ashley Manning: More the logistics getting volunteers and organizing thousands of people to go and make these deliveries. Nominations, is it duplicates? Can we validate the addresses? People show up, it's not the right address. And all of this, we've worked on it year after year.
[00:17:44] Ashley Manning: But he looked at it and he's like, mom and dad, I'm gonna help you. And he created an application and a site for them that is basically like gold. And they piloted it at Valentine's Day and he's sharing it with everybody now. We're testing it, still trying to break it, adjust it. We're on calls every day lately because we're gonna pilot, I'm piloting it for Mother's Day, and that technology right there was the thing that I needed to be able to grow. So now when people are interested, I can say, okay, here's your page. You're gonna collect your nomination, rather than, oh, you can use Google Forms, or you could put it on a website, or you could start your own and. You can use signup genius. That's what we use. , Rather than just throwing all this out there, this is like a one-stop thing.
[00:18:36] Ashley Manning: So let's say you wanted to do this we'd have some conversations and talk about expectations and it, if it really was something a good fit. This year a lot of my new ones, I, we started out with 50. , Let's do
[00:18:48] Ashley Manning: 50. You can do it at your house if because it's an easy way to start and you can do it well. You can learn about, the areas you wanna serve and I just feel like that's a really healthy way to start with that number. And next year you can do a thousand if you want, but let's do 50. . so I'm gonna be able to say, all right, you're ready. This is your page. These are the things you need to do.
[00:19:08] Ashley Manning: This is how you track your nominations. This software now is flagging duplicates and there's just so much there's so many details you don't see other than just the event of coming and making the flowers and the
[00:19:20] Ashley Manning: gift bags. That's like, you can do
[00:19:21] Ashley Manning: that in your sleep, but the actual. Yes, that is like, there is no stress there for me.
[00:19:29] Ashley Manning: The stress is all in. Did we mess up? Did somebody not get theirs? Did they go to the wrong address? And this year was the best year we've had as far as like mistakes. We had one of the years, we don't vet our drivers and somebody signed up and they stole like six
[00:19:46] Deanna Kitchen: Who does that?
[00:19:49] Ashley Manning: And we didn't, I don't
[00:19:51] Ashley Manning: know, but like they could, and we didn't have a system to know who took what. So when people were calling me and saying, Ashley, my mom didn't get hers. And I'm like, okay, well they all went out. That's as good as I could give an answer. I didn't know who took exactly what delivery.
[00:20:11] Ashley Manning: And so now we know that and we have really great stuff within this application to just like account for those things. If the people aren't home, they can send, upload a picture. We can. Share, you know exactly who nominated
[00:20:24] Ashley Manning: you all this. So that's super exciting. And I feel like that is what I needed to be able to mentor people going forward, because otherwise it's a million questions.
[00:20:35] Ashley Manning: So we're gonna be able to jump on calls. And talk to everybody at one time. Like as they start, their page and you know what? From a fundraising perspective, what they should expect, , how much they need to raise. We had some awesome national collaborations with Stanley Brand and Cheryl's Cookies, which is 1-800-FLOWERS, and they donated to
[00:20:56] Ashley Manning: every Watch Love Grow Group
[00:20:58] Ashley Manning: this year. Both of them. That's the kind of the benefit of being like, under Watch, love Grow is that as we have these bigger relationships and donations and things that I can help shepherd people to get started and if they can't raise the money the first year because people don't really get it and they don't really understand and then I can help them, the first year and it's like a one time gift. If, if you do the work, then I can provide all of the things that you need, but then the next year you're responsible for doing that. And I don't think it'll be a problem for people to do it the next year
[00:21:29] Ashley Manning: once the community kind of sees what we're doing. But yeah, so that's
[00:21:33] Deanna Kitchen: Oh my goodness. But it's so incredible. First off, , I think you and I sit in similar roles of having founded nonprofit organizations and you just, this, this seed of an idea is planted and you just jump in and you're building the airplane on the fly. And so it's always fascinating
[00:21:53] Deanna Kitchen: and encouraging in a way, to hear that , it is that there's this idea that one person has, but it's all of these other people who come in and walk alongside of it and help figure out, like, logistically, how are we going to do this as a nonprofit organization? How are we going to fund this? But it's , so absolutely impactful when you see all of those yeses happening and the way that it just continues to move forward.
[00:22:16] Deanna Kitchen: You are engaging so many people in kindness and so many moments of meaningful connection at. The, such a vulnerable and needy time are happening. I actually wanna circle back to something you mentioned earlier. I know this about your story, but I'd love for you to share more about it.
[00:22:32] Deanna Kitchen: You mentioned a mother's love. Can you tell us more about that? You have sister projects now both under the umbrella of your nonprofit organization, watch Love Grow, one of them being the Widow's Outreach and now a Mother's love. Can you share with us more about how that got started and what it is?
[00:22:54] Ashley Manning: Yes, of course. So the, I think it was the second year, or no, maybe the first year we did the widow outreach. I was at my mayesh where I buy all my flowers and Kelly, one of the girls that works there, came over to me and she said. You did a great ash, so what do you do for Mother's Day? And I was kinda like, what do you mean for Mother's Day?
[00:23:15] Ashley Manning: Like I can't, like, I'm like coming up for air right now. What do you want? Like Kelly, what mothers, like mothers that, people that can't have a child or people that lose their mother or like people that lose a child. And she said, well, I lost my daughter. Five years ago and Mother's day's just really hard. I was like, oh. And to be honest, in that moment I was gosh, didn't we just do enough ,
[00:23:41] Ashley Manning: Was so much at that time, but it wasn't the natural time for me to think. I didn't have the bandwidth to think about that. But as the years have gone on, and, I've matured, my children have aged, I learned more about my community. There historically have been dozens of mothers who lost a child that
[00:24:01] Ashley Manning: come and serve for Valentine's Day. They're serving widows in a way that they are, grieving and, healing from their own loss. And so last year I said, I, I prayed about it and prayed about it,
[00:24:17] Ashley Manning: and I had some hesitation because it's heavy, like child loss is so heavy. But a good friend of mine lost her son that year. Baby Ben. I just felt like, Lord, am I supposed to do this? And I mean, all the doors opened like instantly. And we kind of did it under the radar. We didn't advertise a ton. I just wanted to see how it would go. And I prayed for these moms and I got one person that wrote me and said, Hey, I nominated my friend and I would like you to retract the nomination, talk to her husband.
[00:24:54] Ashley Manning: I think it could just make her spiral. So in the same way we were serving widows on Valentine's Day, we're now serving
[00:25:00] Ashley Manning: women who've lost a child on Mother's Day. Just to clarify, 'cause I didn't really share that exactly. So, here I'm thinking, oh man, am I even, are we supposed to do this? The
[00:25:11] Ashley Manning: last thing you wanna do is spiral somebody. So we very quietly and under the radar advertised and we had a much smaller group. Our Valentine's Day is kind of like a party. We have a DJ and decorations, and this was very quiet. And we had our, worship music playing all day. And we prayed together and laughed and groups of women came in honor of a friend's child. And we just we
[00:25:38] Ashley Manning: did 300. In one day. We came together, did everything in one day. Everything got delivered the next day. We decided to do it ahead of Mother's Day so that we didn't
[00:25:47] Ashley Manning: just show up on Sunday and catch you off guard that as you, they eased into Mother's Day, that they would know the, that they're loved and that people are, haven't forgotten their pain. So I have a really interesting story. I was sitting in there and we just ordered Mediterranean food for lunch. Everyone's starving. We have like six deliveries left. This man comes into the church portico where we're all sitting and there's like six of us in there. And he said, I'm looking for Ashley Manning. And he was like, frantic. And I was like, here we go. Like I was ready for it. Like he's gonna lay into me. And I said, I'm Ashley. And I stood up and he grabbed me and he just started sobbing and it was like. Oh, okay. So this isn't what I thought. And he said, you have no idea how much this is gonna mean to her. And I was like, okay. So I'm like, can you tell me like what's going on here? And he said, I was at home. I received the package. My wife is at work. I opened the letter to see what this is. And I read about it. I went to your site. I saw that you're still here for another hour, and I just had to come. So the man drove,, 30 minutes to where we are, just to tell us. His wife had three children. She, her husband was a lawyer and he actually died of cancer shortly after graduating law school. So she was then a single mom of three. She put herself through school at night and met another man that she was very serious or engaged to.
[00:27:23] Ashley Manning: I'm not totally sure which one, but they were on vacation in North Carolina in one of the rivers, like up in the mountains. And her daughter got stuck in a rip current and her fiance or boyfriend went in to
[00:27:37] Ashley Manning: save the daughter and they both died. So, yes, so she lost her second, almost widowed twice and her daughter on the same day. And then he ended up meeting her years later and they've now been married 12 years, so they're older now. But like, that's kind of the history of the relationship. And he just said, the loss of her daughter was something that you never will heal from, and he just couldn't believe that we had taken the time to do that.
[00:28:06] Ashley Manning: So, of course I'm like, well, do you know who nominated her? And he's like. I didn't even get that far. I just came. I just wanted to be here, and it was just such a redeeming, interaction for me. As I was telling you, I'm like nervous, , is this too much? Are we doing the right thing? And it was like a
[00:28:24] Ashley Manning: very strong yes. And then I ended up getting a note in my email a day or so after Mother's Day, and it was from a woman named Scotty and she said, thank you so much for my flowers. I just want you to know about Janie. And she told me on and on about this little girl and it, yeah, her daughter, who was like the female athlete of the year at the huge high school here in town, and she was maybe valedictorian and she was going to grad school at Wake Forest and still playing intermural sports and all of the things, what she loved.
[00:29:00] Ashley Manning: And she would go to every game and she ended up tearing her ACL and she had surgery to repair it and she had a blood clot and she died just like that. And she just said, I just want you to know about her. And as the mission has evolved, that's the, that's what I hear the most of.
[00:29:19] Ashley Manning: People don't want their child to be forgotten like they were really here. And I asked Scotty, I said, can I share about Jane? And I told her why I was nervous to start it. And she said, Ashley. Do you think we don't think about them?
[00:29:35] Ashley Manning: She said, I think about her a hundred times a day. , You're not gonna remind me all of a sudden that she's gone.
[00:29:40] Ashley Manning: And that also kind of validated that we are doing good work by seeing these moms in their grief and reminding them like, on a day we're just so happy and Mother's Day and you're going to have tea or brunch, or whatever nice thing you're doing. There's people that are really
[00:29:56] Ashley Manning: hurting and we're
[00:29:57] Ashley Manning: meeting them
[00:29:58] Deanna Kitchen: no. Better work than to let people know they are seen and they're remembered. As you were sharing with me I had the privilege of having Olivia on the podcast just two weeks, well, two episodes back from this. And Olivia lost a child and one thing that you are sharing, this just resonated so much with me with what she shared, and she said, there's no.
[00:30:24] Deanna Kitchen: Just reach out to people, let them know. Just we're always so afraid of not doing it right, that we don't do anything. And really just it's better to just reach out. Just let people know you see them, that you remember them, that you're thinking of them. There's no wrong way to do that, and I love that.
[00:30:43] Deanna Kitchen: That's the message that you have to share and that you are seeing through your experience too, is. Just to be seen and remembered and to know that someone cares about you and wants to be there for you. Especially like the work that you're doing and showing up at these times that are, days that for so much of the world are celebration.
[00:31:06] Deanna Kitchen: That feel especially heavy and hard that they're being seen and remembered at these moments like that is such powerful work.
[00:31:20] Deanna Kitchen: I.
[00:31:22] Ashley Manning: I. I told you earlier, sometimes you doubt like, am I doing enough? Should I be doing this? Am I taken away too much from my family , by doing these things? And then, you have these stories or the letters that come and they just affirm like that, that this is,
[00:31:38] Ashley Manning: We were designed to do this. The great, the second kid, the Lord says, love the Lord your God with all your heart, your mind with all your soul, and loved your neighbors as yourself. I love the idea that we're kind of flipping the switch on days of just, rather than celebrating the haves, celebrating the have nots, celebrating the people that ache on those days.
[00:31:59] Ashley Manning: And I hope that it carries over into other parts of life, other holidays or the birthdays of these children or the anniversaries of their death, and that our friends would. Would think about people. There's a woman in my town that runs a really big nonprofit and she works all year tirelessly in the name of her daughter. And I mean, they have galas and brunches and this and that and fashion shows. And last year before we went to do deliveries, I just wanted to make sure she was in there and nobody had nominated her. Mom, I'm thinking, huh? Just like that, like people move on, they forget. Like they don't, , and I think that my whole goal through this, and as we add different ways to serve one another is just taking the time to like know people, to know their pain and to meet them there. You don't wear a shirt, we had talked about earlier, like that says like, these are my hard things.
[00:33:02] Ashley Manning: , You see somebody jump outta their car. They have tears in their eyes and you wanna say, what are you okay? You don't know what they're carrying. In fact, the, I talk to everyone. I'm a talker if you didn't notice. And there's a lady at Trader Joe's and she was really mean to me for years.
[00:33:18] Ashley Manning: Her name was Linda and I'd always tried to, and she just walked by an older lady and. The one day she was doing the flowers there and I was over there and she said, I hate Valentine's Day. And I said, why? And she said,
[00:33:32] Ashley Manning: because I lost my husband. So all these years that she's kind of scrooge, she's hurting, and that's just how she was. And the ironic thing is the very first delivery for the entire watch, love Grow. Valentine's Day widow outreach project was to her. Before Trader Joe's opened. I made a special one the night before because I didn't know where she worked or anything, but I confirmed she would be there that day and my husband drove in at, 7 55.
[00:34:05] Ashley Manning: They opened at eight and he brought it to her. And the people there told me she carried it around all day, telling everybody
[00:34:14] Deanna Kitchen: Mm-hmm.
[00:34:14] Ashley Manning: that she had been remembered. And I think that's just such a neat story, that. You just don't know what people are carrying. And I hope that through this ministry, we extend more grace to people because we certainly don't know what people are going
[00:34:30] Deanna Kitchen: I love that it's such a beautiful reminder that I think we're quick to have grace and compassion and patience for hurts that are visible on the outside. But we're, so many of us are carrying around hurts on the inside or, walking through a season that's really, really heartbreaking. And so for people to just, for us to just meet everybody, that be kind to everybody because you don't know what kind of battle they're struggling with.
[00:35:05] Deanna Kitchen: I think this. Your entire outreach reminds us all of that so much is we don't always see those losses and it, they don't go away. They have to be carried forever.
[00:35:22] Ashley Manning: They do, and I think that a really unique part about this is that I've been able to see firsthand, like the love that we've given out. It comes back, . The people that carried me through, like arguably the har hardest, most painful year of my life physically. Were all of these people that I met through this ministry and the very first year, I can share this now, I don't know if I've ever shared it out loud that we did the widow outreach. My brother had tried to end his life and then overdosed again, and it was so scary and it was so hard. In the driveway that first year, no one had any idea because it was very private. We live in a small town in Pennsylvania that everybody kind of like my parents keep to themselves.
[00:36:10] Ashley Manning: My brother now has gone to the other side in recovery and he's now speaking about his. Addiction. And so I can now talk about it, because of course I would have to respect him. That day nobody knew me like
[00:36:24] Ashley Manning: crying on the floor before everybody got there. So I think the love that, , we were doing, the people that showed up, the people we were going to serve, like they really carried me through a hard time. Not, not even before my eye stuff started. I mean, that was down the road. I I did the last delivery of the first year and it was to my neighbor, Libby Harris, who was 93. And I didn't wanna do it 'cause I was exhausted and I got in the car because it was pouring down rain, even though she lives three houses down.
[00:36:56] Ashley Manning: And I said to my, I brought three of the kids, the baby we left here. And I said to my son, Tyson, I said, you need to just go knock on the door and give this to her. That's how tired I was and I was, he, so he did, and she didn't answer the door. And so I said, well, just leave it on the porch. Let's go. My, I had gone inside to take a shower because I was so cold and my hair was still wet,
[00:37:17] Ashley Manning: but I knew I, it was dark out.
[00:37:18] Ashley Manning: We had to get this to her. So, and then I said, oh no, maybe just bring it back. We'll go back tomorrow. So as he goes back to get it, the door opens. She's with her little walker and we all get out of the car. So now it's Marky, Mia Tyson, and Tyson is eight, Mia is six, Marky is four. And she was so confused like, what is this?
[00:37:41] Ashley Manning: Wait me, she said, I, when you've been alone so long, you forget to
[00:37:45] Ashley Manning: be sad on a holiday like today, but I just can't believe you would think about me. And she said, I. I feel like I'm gonna cry. She just cried and she said, and, and my grandkids or my kids never thought about doing this for me. And we stood there and we talked a little bit and she told us about her. And she, my youngest had like longer hair and she kept calling him a girl. And we just sat there and visited with her for a few minutes. And when we walked away, my daughter said, mom, is that why you do this? And I said, what do you mean, honey?
[00:38:18] Ashley Manning: And she said, because of how it makes you feel. And I said, well, how do you feel? She said, I feel really good. Like she was crying because she was so happy that we brought this to her. And that was just a moment like I'll never forget, is that, even the example my children are seeing by us serving one another is something that they're not gonna learn any other way
[00:38:39] Ashley Manning: than feeling it for
[00:38:40] Deanna Kitchen: Absolutely. What an incredible opportunity to lead them and sow seeds in their lives that help them to see just how powerful even the smallest
[00:38:51] Deanna Kitchen: acts of kindness can be. Ashley, this has truly been an honor to get to hear the way your mission has grown from one small Yes. To now reaching so many communities across the United States and touching so many lives and moments when.
[00:39:10] Deanna Kitchen: At moments when, let's see, this is where I'm like, good thing way of editing. On days and at times when. When life is especially heavy and hard. Ashley, I appreciate so much that we have our information that we actually, lemme go back. So if you mentioned earlier that if anybody wanted to get connected with you and learn more about the work that you're doing or maybe reach out to you about bringing this into their communities, the best way to do that is to reach out through social media through your Instagram or your
[00:39:41] Ashley Manning: Or our website.
[00:39:42] Deanna Kitchen: Morgan.
[00:39:44] Ashley Manning: Yep. Instagram. Yeah. Instagram will have like the most updates but. The most live updates, but the website has my contact information and the email and everything, and they're welcome to do that. Once we get through Mother's Day, I'll probably have an interest button on there to just try to garner, people that may be interested.
[00:40:03] Ashley Manning: And, some people might hear about it and think it's not the right.
[00:40:11] Deanna Kitchen: Oh, Ashley, so sorry. I'm so sorry. I have to interrupt you. There was an incoming call and it stopped the recording for just a minute. Do you mind if we go back and just do that section? That's okay. It just, luckily it gives me these notes so I know 'cause I was like, wait, why is it cutting out? So I was able to hear you but the recording stopped.
[00:40:32] Deanna Kitchen: Oh. 'cause you need to go, we need to be
[00:40:33] Deanna Kitchen: wrapped up. Sorry. 'cause don't
[00:40:34] Ashley Manning: thinking
[00:40:34] Ashley Manning: about that for a second, and I think that, I know this is so corny, but the adage that you know, is
[00:40:43] Ashley Manning: age
[00:40:43] Deanna Kitchen: if you have, we have, we can wrap.
[00:40:45] Ashley Manning: as little children do unto
[00:40:47] Deanna Kitchen: That's okay.
[00:40:47] Ashley Manning: unto you.
[00:40:48] Deanna Kitchen: what we could do is we actually could do, we could circle back to this.
[00:40:52] Ashley Manning: is
[00:40:52] Deanna Kitchen: could do like a 2.0 a little later down
[00:40:55] Ashley Manning: in a life
[00:40:55] Deanna Kitchen: think you did a really good job covering your organization, what you do, just how important it's to see people and to show up as we are.
[00:41:02] Deanna Kitchen: I think that's all
[00:41:03] Ashley Manning: and Valentine's Day,
[00:41:04] Deanna Kitchen: We cut out on that little part of like kind of just sharing how to get, so I'll just re-ask that question if it's okay. Of like how to get in touch
[00:41:11] Ashley Manning: seeing
[00:41:12] Deanna Kitchen: And if it's okay with you, I'll ask you our closing question. I know that you and I could talk for like another 17 hours um, but I would love to, I would love, love. but I would love to, I would love, love.
[00:41:45] Deanna Kitchen: Ashley I know that so many who listen today are gonna be moved. Let me rephrase this.
[00:41:50] Deanna Kitchen: If anyone listening today wanted to get in touch with you and wanted to bring watch, love, grow into their communities, can you share with us the best ways to be able to do that?
[00:42:38] Ashley Manning: over to my
[00:42:39] Deanna Kitchen: We'll make sure to link all that in the show
