{"id":272530,"date":"2026-08-26T12:00:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T12:00:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/272530\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T12:00:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T12:00:12","slug":"marys-shelter-in-reading-receives-500000-gift-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/272530\/","title":{"rendered":"Mary’s Shelter in Reading receives $500,000 gift"},"content":{"rendered":"

A small group of people gathered inside the lobby of Mary\u2019s Shelter<\/a> on Monday afternoon, excited about the future.<\/p>\n

And the executive director of the Reading shelter for pregnant woman and unaccompanied teens said there was good reason for that.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have ideas,\u201d Christine Folk said with a laugh. \u201cMy staff said please don\u2019t do anything new for a year and I agreed. But I\u2019m going to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mary\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

And in the years to come, Folk said, the shelter\u2019s expansion will continue. Next on the list, she said, is buying apartments where the teens Mary\u2019s Shelter serves can transition to after turning 18.<\/p>\n

And a gift that Mary\u2019s Shelter celebrated Monday \u2014 the reason for the crowd \u2014 will go a long way to helping make that happen.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s great,\u201d Christopher Sander, Laura\u2019s son, said of his mother\u2019s estate aiding the shelter. \u201cIt was something she was very passionate about.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ChristineChristine 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)<\/p>\n

Along with the money, all of Laura Sander\u2019s furniture was also gifted to Mary\u2019s Shelter. It will be used to furnish the new apartments, Folk said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat was a program that really spoke to Laura,\u201d said Stephanie Rawden, her friend. \u201cI know it would really thrill her to know her stuff is helping someone get their start.\u201d<\/p>\n

Folk said Laura Sander\u2019s generosity will help Mary\u2019s Shelter succeed in an environment where government funding has become unreliable.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe decided we are not going to stop serving Berks County,\u201d she said. \u201cWe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

And the shelter\u2019s expansion of services is much-needed, Folk said.<\/p>\n

Mary\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"ChristineChristine 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)<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The count found that about 16% of those experiencing homelessness were under the age of 18.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of work that needs to be done, Folk said, and to accomplish it places like Mary\u2019s Shelter need support like the kind it has received from Laura Sander.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt allows us to keep running what we\u2019re running, but also dream about the future,\u201d she said of the gift.<\/p>\n

For more information about Mary\u2019s Shelter, visit marysshelter.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A small group of people gathered inside the lobby of Mary\u2019s Shelter on Monday afternoon, excited about the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":272517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[349,1557,182,139,28,128,130,129,3801],"class_list":["post-272530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-berks-county","tag-chester-county","tag-local-news","tag-news","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-top-stories-dln"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}