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Lives Transformed: Lesley & Shawn Stunkel

The Circles USA model supports people’s efforts to deepen and expand what they think is possible: for themselves, their families, and their communities. As Circle Leaders reach milestones in their journeys toward financial stability, we document their achievements as Lives Transformed stories to highlight joy and hope as valuable tools in combating poverty.


This year’s Lives Transformed awardees were nominated from among thousands of exceptional Circle Leaders nationwide. Though their backgrounds and experiences vary, each exemplifies Circles USA’s core values of perseverance, initiative, and service to their chapters and communities. Congratulations to our 2024 Lives Transformed cohort!

 
Lesley Stunkel
Lesley Stunkel

Lesley

I was adopted when I was younger. [Because of] my first job, I kind of knew how to budget. But once I met my husband, we just kind of fell on some hard times. I got back with my birth mom and took some classes, went through college. My daughter went through Head Start. At that time we were trying to figure out how we were going to come up with an extra day's worth of meals. So we were like, “Okay, let's just go check Circles USA out.” When we went, they were in the middle of the class. So we just kept coming back for the meals, and finally we got into the class.


About that time, Shawn got a job [as a bus driver for special needs children] and was always on call. When he had a call, he had to leave the meeting or whatnot, and I just kind of filled him in later. We graduated from the class and then, [once we became] Circle Leaders, I [built] a side business with cakes and stuff. Instead of going out and buying a hundred dollars’ worth of cake, our chapter basically reimburses me for all my supplies!

Lesley Stunkel with her degree
Lesley Stunkel with her degree

Our Allies encouraged me to go back to college to get my Associate [degree] in art. It took me three years just to get that degree because of my disability. So I've got that, now, and I've got a good-paying job so that we're not hurting or struggling or living from paycheck to paycheck. 


My daughter’s now 11 and a fifth grader. Her school [hired me]. Since I’ve got this job, I'm able to pay off my debts within the next six months. And the teachers that I work with, the staff there, care about not just my health, but my family's health. A couple years ago our daughter got diagnosed with seizures. She had to be intubated because she just kept having seizure after seizure and we couldn't stop them. That was a very scary moment of our life; we didn't really know what was going on and we were both working at that time. I was still going to college. We were like, “What are we going to do?” It was easier for me to take the whole month off of work. My check wasn't going to be as big, but we always had the support from Circles. They were just a phone call away to help us through the process of our daughter getting better. She hasn't really had a seizure in a year now, which is excellent. She's thriving in her school—the teachers have noticed that she's a different person. And the Circles [people] have noticed, too. We didn't come just for the food. We came there to better ourselves, to better our kids so that they can have a better life.


Daughter Rocksane
Daughter Rocksane

We've been in Circles over five years now and we enjoy it. Our kids even enjoy it. They have a program with four or five different people coming in to watch the kids and [teach] finances. We are going to have our son in the next Circles class [in February 2025]. We've been through three different directors since we've been there, and we still keep going. And the funny thing is, the director that we have now actually was in the same Circle Leader class that we graduated from. So we know, just from seeing her moving up, that the system does work. And that's what we like, seeing that progress. 


I was shy at first, but since going back to college, I've come out of my shell. I'm not afraid to tell someone that I've been in their steps before. I have, and we're not here to judge you. We are here to help you better yourself and get you to where we are now. That's what helped us—our Allies who told us, “We are not here to judge you. We are here to help you in any way possible. We're just a phone call, text, or Zoom meeting away. We are here for you.” That's what showed us that they do care. So we're sticking to it.

Shawn Stunkel
Shawn Stunkel

Shawn


I’m a native of Hutchinson, Kansas. My dad worked in factories most of his life because, you know, he had no high school education. He quit school in the eighth grade. So we come from no money, basically; I didn't have a silver spoon lifestyle. I had moved to Nebraska in my early 20s to stay with some friends and try to find work. And I kind of hopscotched back and forth between Nebraska and Kansas for, oh, shoot, the next four, five, six years. Lesley and I met in Nebraska. She's from Burlington, Colorado, originally, so it was kind of a chance meeting. We’ve been back in Kansas since 2012.


The COVID crisis in 2020 was a struggle. I had lost my mother that March. She was pretty well homebound and had stayed with us for the last six months of her life. Pretty much our entire world had been turned upside down and nobody was meeting because of COVID; and then essentially the entire country shut down. But our Allies stuck with us. They were right alongside us every step of the way. And that meant more to the both of us than going to a meeting every Thursday night. And once we started meeting again in the first part of 2021, it was like we picked up exactly where we'd left off. It's been a long [journey], but it's been well worth it.


Shawn with son Austin
Shawn with son Austin

Over the last few years, Lesley going back to school really bailed us out of a lot of financial difficulties. My job was not near enough to keep the bills paid. I had hoped to put all that money into savings, but circumstances didn't work out. So [it was] like, “Okay, we need to start getting the bills taken care of. We need to keep going as normally as possible with what's going on around us in order to stay the course.” I won't sit here and say that it's an easy process, because it takes a lot of soul searching and a lot of looking within yourself to realize that you are, in fact, flawed. Everybody is going to struggle, but [in Circles] they take such a non-judgmental attitude. You get to go back and start clear, from the beginning. But you still keep your progress. We tailor resources: Okay, you lost your job? Here's the number [for] workforce, here's the number to vocational rehab. We have a network of resources at our disposal to help folks do what they need to do. We're not just gonna shove them out the door. 


What's awesome about Circles is how it takes a group of ideas and it makes you search within yourself. Like, “Hey, wait a minute…this is why I'm struggling.” Whether [you’re] addicted to some sort of substance or whatever the case may be, it’s special to know that there's somebody that knows what you're going through. All they want to do is help you find healthy ways to distance yourself from poverty, from being homeless, what have you. 


Getting yourself out of poverty—it's not an overnight process. You’ve got to have some sense of commitment. I've seen so many folks come and go from that class or from the organization as a whole, and I've stuck with it. There's been a handful of us that have stuck with it since pre-COVID. And we still go, we still have our fellowship. It helps to have that constant in your life. You’ve got to have some sort of consistency, because once you get yourself out of poverty, you've got to find ways to keep yourself from regressing back to what brought you to Circles in the first place.


Without our Circles Reno County community—their guidance, their pushing us to better ourselves—we would have never made it to where we are. It means the world to Lesley and I to have been nominated for this. We hope to continue to do great things for Circles. We can't thank everybody enough for helping us along the way. Not just the Circle Leaders that have come and gone after we graduated, but everybody in the community. They take an interest in what's going on with you as a person. I keep my social life private; it's a little out of the norm for me to intermingle. But since I have, I've thrived so much. Sarah [Haworth], our director, says I've come out of my shell. We're part of several different chapter committees. Lesley's part of the Community Resource Team. We're there for a lot of the recruiting events, not just as potential Allies but to show our support to the organization as a whole. Because without the support of people like us, the Circles model doesn't thrive and we can't get that message out to other areas.


I really haven’t set concrete goals for 2025. I'm one of those that takes life one day at a time; I make the best of what cards I'm dealt. But ultimately, I look forward to mentoring the new generation of Circle Leaders coming up. We just graduated three from our last class this past week. I'm hoping to possibly be matched with one of those, but if that's not the case, I'm not gonna quit. I'm going to keep going until I hit retirement age. I can't say enough good things about Circles!


 


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