An Evening with Kathy Izard

Moderated by Sonja Gantt

Join us to celebrate the release of a new edition of Kathy Izard’s inspirational memoir about building a home for Charlotte’s homeless. The Hundred Story Home reminds us that not only can we help change the world, but in doing so we change ourselves.

About the Book:

Believing in the whisper was crazy. Denying she had heard it was impossible.

Do Good. Love Well. Kathy Izard grew up believing in this family wisdom. And although she had abandoned her faith years ago, she was proud to serve regularly in her community’s soup kitchen. Then an unexpected encounter with the formerly homeless and bestselling coauthor, Denver Moore, made her realize that though she thought she was doing good, serving soup was not enough.

Following an insistent whisper, Kathy quit her job as a graphic designer and began to do what seemed unimaginable: build a home for Charlotte’s homeless. Kathy was a mother of four, in the second half of life, and the task didn’t make any sense, yet it proved to be her first step in finding her own way home.

In The Hundred Story Home, Kathy invites us to live out our own stories more fully. “Do you ever have the feeling that what you are doing isn’t what you are supposed to be doing? I wrote The Hundred Story Homenot to convince you to solve the homelessness in your community but to help solve the homelessness in you.”

About Kathy Izard:

Kathy Izard was an award-winning graphic designer for twenty years in Charlotte before launching the pilot program Homeless to Homes for the interfaith Urban Ministry Center in 2007. She led the city-wide effort to build Moore Place, Charlotte’s first permanent supportive housing for chronically homeless men and women. After Moore Place opened in 2012, Kathy worked on numerous civic projects most recently leading the development campaign for HopeWay, Charlotte’s first nonprofit residential mental health treatment center which opened in 2016. She wrote about her efforts in the originally self-published memoir The Hundred Story Home which received the 2017 Christopher Award.  In 2017, the book and movie rights to her story were purchased by Thomas Nelson, a division of Harper Collins, and a new edition released June 2018. www.kathyizard.com

About Sonja Gantt, Moderator

Sonja Gantt currently serves as the Executive Director of the CMS Foundation. By harnessing the power of private investments in education the CMS Foundation seeds innovative ideas and works to expand programs that accelerate system-wide transformation in Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools. Sonja often shares that her work is all about developing a culture of “schoolanthropy”- a spirit of support for our public schools.

Prior to joining the Foundation in 2016, Sonja spent 28 years in television news most recently serving as an anchor/reporter at NBC Charlotte. Her journalism career started in Florence, SC at WBTW and included stints at WBTV (Charlotte) and WGN (Chicago). Her reporting has been celebrated with numerous awards including a Mid-South Regional Emmy in 2011.

Sonja enjoys being involved in the Charlotte community and is currently an active member of Friendship Missionary Baptist Church, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc. and the Board of Directors of the YMCA of Greater Charlotte.

She is a die-hard Tar Heels fan having earned a Bachelor of Arts in Broadcast Journalism from the University of North Carolina after graduating from East Mecklenburg High School. Sonja and her husband Mitch have two children, Gabrielle and Grant.