Origin Story

Beginning

Magdalene’s Mission origin was planted in 2015 when I, Kayla Marie Donaldson, was asked a question on a meme.

“Do you have an old pure laying around? Fill it with feminine hygiene items and a small snack and pass it out to a homeless woman.”

I did have unused purses in my closet. I did remember what it was like to be a homeless female without access to feminine hygiene items. I had been practicing discipleship and fundraising events at my home church, People’s Church, in Pinckney, Michigan. That Sunday I prayed on it at church. Then I asked my friend sitting next to me if she thought I should do it. She replied, absolutely. So, I obeyed God, and I went for it.

I named it, “The Valentine’s Day Purse Project” because I was going to collect purses at the beginning of February, then drive around and pass them out on Valentine’s Day. My church announced the event, and I created a post on Facebook. I was overwhelmed with the response.

That first year, I spread the message far and wide on-line. Donations poured in early and continued throughout February. People were collecting purses for me in cities all around Michigan. I picked up about hundred and fifty filled purses. I used my inner-city skills from when I was younger and passed out the purses to homeless women I saw at intersections from Lansing, to Flint, to Ypsilanti to downtown Detroit. The rest, with the help of my friend Candy and her Denali, I gave to a woman’s homeless shelter operating out of an abandoned church and a homeless services center in downtown Detroit.

Later that year, there was a legal rental dispute, and my family was homeless for three months until we could find a new refuge. Luckily, a friend from church was able to help our family of five in time. We relocated to Whitmore Lake.

By the end of the year 2015, people were already excited about the next Purse Project. I opened the donation window a month early. The donations that came in were significantly more than the year before. People’s church opened an unused office for me to store all the purses and hygiene products that were coming in. The fundraiser bloomed a new petal, when people began donating various items as well as emptied or filled purses. The youth group at People’s stepped up and we packed over 200 purses with all sorts of hygiene, snacks, socks, handwarmers, notebooks, and a myriad of tiny ways to tell someone they are loved.

Early in 2016, I met a young man who would alter the course of this mission forever. I was working in the church café serving pour-over coffee’s, which is another small fundraiser I began for the church’s overseas missions, when I saw a new person passing through. I greeted him warmly. Then I offered him a cup of gourmet coffee and he made a beeline to my table.

As we chatted, in the normal way, he told me that he worked for a nonprofit that went into the neighborhoods of the highest crime rates for sex and drug trafficking, the offered free medical care to victims of human trafficking, while also rescuing ones who were trying to escape.

I knew immediately what had to happened next. I told him about my yearly fundraiser, and asked would he like to be the sole recipient of the purses next year. Of course he would. It was a perfect match.

My son, Ambrose, told me proudly that what I did to help those women was with my fundraiser was going to be the greatest thing I did with my life. Later that year, my son was killed by a hit and run driver when walking home from work.

The Purse Project collected nearly 350 purses in 2017. It took nearly every youth volunteer, and their families, to pack them with the bounty of donations we collected.

The person who I was donating purses to offered to let me and a couple of friends come along to pass out the purses. I brought my, at that time, new friend, Traci. She used to live in Detroit. She had Detroit Punk roots. She had a soft heart and thick skin. The only other person I was certain would know how to act, was the woman who I had run away to New York City with when we were teens.

I came back and wrote my first report and published it on-line. What we saw was so unbelievable, so dramatic, so desperate, so close by. Traci and I knew what we had to do. Our minds were made up. Our hearts were committed.

During the years of 2018, 2019, and 2020, the project grew. We had an Amazon Wish List; we had graphic artists volunteer flyers. The Valentine’s Day Purse Project became embedded as an annual event at People’s Church. The Event had its own Facebook Page.

It was Autumn of 2020. The fourth anniversary of my sons death had come and gone. I was still lost in a very dark, heavy blanket of grief. I prayed, begged, for peace. What God presented me with was work.

By October of 2020, donation centers would still not accept donations. My phone started receiving requests to see if I was accepting donations yet for my Purse Project.

I called a friend of mine who I had served with a church, who was an active ministry leader, and I asked her how to make this Purse Project into a full-time thing.

Middle

To register as a 501c3, I had to change the name. Every version of the word ‘purse’ was taken. I thought about who it was from the Bible who had inspired me. I wanted us to behave as true disciples, the way Pastor Patrick Bonnie had taught us. I wanted to go to the people, the way Jesus did. I wanted us to be present with those who were ostracized for their suffering, the way Jesus was, the way Mary Magdalene was. When Jesus rose from the grave, the very first person he wanted to see Him, was his best friend Mary of Magdalene. From the moment she sought Jesus out to heal her, and through every hour of Jesus’ suffering, she never left Jesus’ side. She never doubted or denied Jesus. I wanted us to have a heart so fearless with unwavering strength, that Jesus would consider us a friend.

Our first night out as Magdalene’s Mission dramatically altered our trajectory as a nonprofit. My Traci had been by my side for everything. Now, she was heading out with me on our first night as an official nonprofit.

We met up with the other teams. People were happy for the purses. Someone gave me a garbage bag of clothes. It was below freezing on a cold night in November. No one was dressed in weather appropriate clothing. No coats, hats, shoes, sometimes pants. It was insane. There was no charities in the area. There were not any soup kitchens, or bread lines. A small bag of sack lunches was devoured in moments. I went home and wrote about everything we saw. Peace, Love and Hygiene: Volume 1.

As soon as people read about the conditions people were living in, the donations poured in. I was now taking out hygiene kits for women and men. We had coats, boots, and winter clothes. I had a woman volunteer to buy and prepare meals for me each week.

 At first, the donations that I received filled a room in my basement. Then it filled the entire basement. Then it filled half the basement plus my garage. Then we rented a double storage unit 15 miles away, in Pinckney to fit the donations I could no longer fit on my property. Then we utilized a friends garage to handle the overflow. We filled half of his garage and had to move it to another storage unit in Pinckney and let the first one go. This doesn’t include the donations that arrive at People’s Church in Pinckney each week as well. Donations of clothing, hygiene, and now we also we operating a meal program out of my tiny two-bedroom house. I had to have an area designated for hygiene kits.

Then in 2022, the Denali, our outreach vehicle as well as my personal transportation, died. No vehicle means no way to deliver goods. The Mazur’s who own Mazur Automotive promptly donated a Dodge Caravan to Magdalene’s Mission so that we could continue outreach on the streets of Detroit. That is an example of how strongly people believe in what Magdalene’s Mission does and especially how we do it.

We get up Early Tuesday morning and prepare an average of 50 healthy meals per week. The size of the meal varies depending on how much food has or has not been donated that week. We took the meals to Detroit in the van. Then we pack up an average of 40-50 hygiene kits, men’s and women’s clean clothing, blankets, tents, flashlights, handwarmers, pepper spray, tarps, or whatever items people may need to survive living shelter challenged.

The medical team and Magdalene’s Mission work in tandem to further the other’s nonprofit. When people need medical attention from the other team, they nearly always require food, hygiene, and clothes. While serving the people on the street who come for a warm meal, or clean, appropriate clothing, I, Traci, and the handful of volunteers who have come with us on the street, can ask them questions and subtly uncover any hidden health concerns or pregnancies.

The Peace, Love and Hygiene Report has a sizable and loyal following. It has promoted the continuation of donations by assuring every donor, every person who drop a bag of cookies off on my doorstep will know exactly where and to whom they were served.

Our first two major goals were to:

 1) Move Magdalene’s Mission into it’s own domain. And

 2) To earn a salary so that I could afford to operate Magdalene’s Mission full-time.

The first one we have achieved. Along with my faithful board of directors, and endless slew of volunteers from all over America, we believe in our species and can each do our own part, utilize our own gifts in a way that benefits mankind and can truly change the life-or-death outcomes for real people in Michigan.

Presently, we operate on 100% personal donations. Yet we are affecting hundreds of people per month. The outcomes that could unfold if we were properly equipped are as unlimited as our devotion to this truly genuine mission.

Present

In the summer of 2024, the man that met all those years ago, whom we had been doing street outreach together weekly for three and a half years, had ben operating as his own nonprofit for the past couple of years and had landed a safe base of operations at Fort Street Presbyterian Church in downtown Detroit. It was beautiful. It was perfect. Then he showed me an area that would finally be large enough to hold all our material donations in one place.

Since Magdalene’s Mission is now operating from a place in Detroit, everything is gathered together in a place where we need it. There is now plenty of room and therefore opportunity for even more volunteers to take part in this mission.