Libby’s Journey of Hope

“Rock bottom was my regrowth,” Libby Rippetoe says in the first line of her Journeys of Hope video, made for SAMMinistries’ annual gala. Her story, she says, really began when she found out she was pregnant.

She didn’t have the support or the financial means to raise a son alone, and she didn’t have a degree. She was a client of SAMMinistries’ Transitional Living and Learning Center, and she always felt that whenever an obstacle came up, all she had to do was talk to her case manager. Together they’d figure out how to move forward. “It gave me the confidence that I don’t have to bear the weight of the world on my shoulders,” she says.

“I feel like I always had my son in my rear view mirror,” she says. “It was always him, always us.” She wanted him to have the best childhood, to flourish more than she did and to have opportunities, even as a single mom.

Getting her bachelor’s degree was “such a monumental moment for me,” she says. It’s when she reflects on how far she’s come that it hits her: “I deserve this and I’ve worked hard for this.” People don’t know how “truly life changing” SAMMinistries’ program is, she says. Her video is part of SAMMinistries’ full 2024 gala video too. On the same shoot, we photographed Libby with her son.