A small group of people gathered inside the lobby of Mary’s Shelter on Monday afternoon, excited about the future.
And the executive director of the Reading shelter for pregnant woman and unaccompanied teens said there was good reason for that.
“I have ideas,” Christine Folk said with a laugh. “My staff said please don’t do anything new for a year and I agreed. But I’m going to.”
Mary’s Shelter has seen a lot of changes over the past decade, including expanding its efforts to help pregnant woman and single mothers to include homeless teens and struggling families.
And in the years to come, Folk said, the shelter’s expansion will continue. Next on the list, she said, is buying apartments where the teens Mary’s Shelter serves can transition to after turning 18.
And a gift that Mary’s Shelter celebrated Monday — the reason for the crowd — will go a long way to helping make that happen.
The late Laura Sander, who owned several McDonalds franchises in Lehigh and Chester counties and lived in Reading the last decade or so of her life, provided the shelter with $500,000 from her estate.
“I think it’s great,” Christopher Sander, Laura’s son, said of his mother’s estate aiding the shelter. “It was something she was very passionate about.”
Christine Folk, executive director of Mary’s Shelter, and Christopher Sander of Coatesville, son of Linda Sander, a shelter benefactor, hold a $500,00 gift from Linda Sander presented to the shelter on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
Along with the money, all of Laura Sander’s furniture was also gifted to Mary’s Shelter. It will be used to furnish the new apartments, Folk said.
“That was a program that really spoke to Laura,” said Stephanie Rawden, her friend. “I know it would really thrill her to know her stuff is helping someone get their start.”
Folk said Laura Sander’s generosity will help Mary’s Shelter succeed in an environment where government funding has become unreliable.
The shelter has recently seen its federal funding cut, Folk said. But instead of letting that cripple them, the staff and board have decided to look at it as an opportunity.
“We decided we are not going to stop serving Berks County,” she said. “We realized that with no federal funding, we can actually expand. We can open up to single dads, to two-income families who are struggling, to grandparents raising a grandchild.”
And the shelter’s expansion of services is much-needed, Folk said.
Mary’s Shelter is serving about 300 families a month through a program that provides diapers, food, clothing, household items and other products to struggling families, Folk said.
Christine Folk, executive director of Mary’s Shelter, talks about donations to the shelter during a presentation and a tour on Monday, Aug. 24, 2026. (BILL UHRICH/READING EAGLE)
And based on the 2025 point-in-time count by the Berks Coalition to End Homelessness, there were nearly 700 people experiencing homelessness in the county. That number is likely low, as those experiencing homeless are notoriously difficult to count.
The count found that about 16% of those experiencing homelessness were under the age of 18.
There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, Folk said, and to accomplish it places like Mary’s Shelter need support like the kind it has received from Laura Sander.
“It allows us to keep running what we’re running, but also dream about the future,” she said of the gift.
For more information about Mary’s Shelter, visit marysshelter.org.