From Living Rooms to International Recognition: SPARC’s Story

The idea for SPARC might have started with just one family, but now this once personal need has touched single parents across the world! 

Before Joy was a single parent herself, she was the child of a single mom. 

“Even as a child, I could tell that it looked harder than it needed to be,” Joy shared. “So I decided I was definitely not going to be a single mom. My solution to that was to get married young.”

After having two children of her own, divorce left Joy a single mother. During this season, her strong support system eased the load of single parenthood. 

“I was insulated with a lot of extended family. I was able to work and let the grandparents argue over who was going to keep the children,” she said. 

With this support, she felt empowered as a single mom. “I was doing great,” she said, “My kids were doing great. I thought, ‘You know what? I’m really single momming out here!’” 

When Joy decided to move from her home in New York to Atlanta, she realized just how important her support system had been. 

“For the first time, I was just a single mom with two kids in a foreign land, so to speak, with no family support. That’s when the struggle really started to hit me,” she said.

Joy began to notice her son’s friends who had single parents and saw that she and the other parents were experiencing similar struggles. 

She decided to act.

“I started inviting them to my house on the weekend because I was missing the family that I had,” Joy said. “We started building one for ourselves.”

From sharing parenting tips to cooking meals to babysitting each other’s children, this group offered one another needed support and encouragement. News of the group spread to her sons’ school and to her church, and Joy began rallying more single parents in the community.

Founding a nonprofit wasn’t on Joy’s radar when she first opened her home to other parents, but as her outreach continued to grow, she realized she could meet even more needs for single parents through a nonprofit. The Single Parent Alliance & Resource Center (SPARC) was officially born in 2001.

This new — and still small — nonprofit solidified its place in the community when the United States government learned what Joy was doing. 

“The State Department called us and asked us to do a training for South Korea because their single-parent population was growing,” she shared.

Even though she was continually reaching more families, Joy was still working full-time outside of her nonprofit, underestimating how many parents she could empower if she expanded SPARC’s outreach. But she reflected that “when the State Department calls you, it’s probably a thing you should take seriously!”

Joy realized then that she’d started something bigger than she imagined. Over the last five years, SPARC has continued to expand the ways it can support single parents, especially following the global pandemic in 2020.

“When COVID hit, we moved immediately to homelessness prevention and rent assistance,” Joy explained. “Now we focus on housing stability, economic stability and family stability.”

By the end of this summer, Joy and her team hope to help 100 families find stable housing. 

And in 2026, she’s setting her sights even higher. 

SPARC will officially launch its Project365 campaign with the goal to move 365 families out of extended-stay motels and into safe, permanent housing through their Motel to Home program.

“This is about more than just housing,” Joy said. “It’s about hope. It’s about telling a child, ‘You don’t have to grow up in a motel parking lot.’ It’s about giving families a fresh start — one day, one family at a time.”

Why?

Because families deserve more than a microwave and a mini-fridge for their meals.
Because safe, stable housing should be a basic human right.
Because change starts with one family — and then another and another.

“This campaign is personal,” Joy added. “It’s the next chapter of SPARC. We want 2026 to be the year that changes everything — for 365 families and countless futures.”

As she finalizes the next steps for the Project365 campaign, one particular partnership has been key.

“The Community Foundation is truly a resource for nonprofits. I love all the [Nonprofit and Leadership Academy] trainings. They make knowledge accessible for us,” Joy shared. “When we approach someone new, they’ve often heard about us because someone [from the Community Foundation] has gone before us and advocated for us. That’s powerful for a nonprofit.”

Joy has been connected with the Foundation for close to a decade, but she recently opened SPARC’s fund as she looks forward to serving even more families. 

“That’s a piece that I honestly missed before,” she said. “It’s powerful to have our fund, and it makes giving so much easier.”

Support SPARC as Joy and her team serve single parents! Click here to donate to their fund.