JACKSON, MI - When she has no quarters and there are families without washing machines hoping to have their clothes cleaned.
When there is a truck full of contributions and no one to unload it.
When there are 1,400 bags to hold hygiene products for the poor, but nothing to put inside them.
Wendy Wight prays.
She prays and someone, on a whim, drops off a donation. A strong man stops, unannounced, to offer assistance, and a corporation pledges $5,000 for soaps and shampoo.
Prayer, Wight says, is the motor that drives her bevy of community projects, her continual effort to identify and fill needs - and even a nonbeliever would have a hard time arguing its effectiveness.
For nine years, Wight has directed the nonprofit Christian organization she founded, Together We Can Make a Difference, on the slimmest of budgets and the most ambitious of plans.
A list of what it accomplishes with less than $20,000 in guaranteed annual funds would fill pages. She and a small group of volunteers distribute toys to thousands of children at Christmas time, launder clothes for the underprivileged or sick, give away handcrafted quilts, help urban children learn to garden and teach elementary students about Jesus Christ.
For her selfless devotion to the people of her hometown and her vast resume of good deeds, the Citizen Patriot has named Wight, 54, of Summit Township its 2015 Citizen of the Year.
"That woman has boundless energy. She has helped so many. She cries over the poorest poor here in Jackson, and she calls them her family," said Marilyn Deverell, who volunteers her time about every week to sew at the Together We Can Make a Difference house at 224 W. Wilkins St.
Deverell nominated Wight for the honor because she was impressed with Wight's graciousness and "deep abiding love."
With a gentle voice and an easy smile, Wight herself takes none of the credit. She is genuinely embarrassed by the idea of her picture appearing on the front page of the newspaper and seeks no attention or publicity.
"All of this is so not about one person. It is about loving God," she said.
Getting started
It was a Saturday in early December and she was at a St. Vincent de Paul building on E. Michigan Avenue preparing for an opening of her Priceless Gift Toy Store, where thousands of new and gently used toys are distributed to select community members.
Clearly busy, she fielded calls on the dated cell phone from which she manages her many projects and endless contacts as she explained the vision that came to her when she dispelled a bout of anger and disappointment.
After 23 years with Meijer, she lost her job as a department manager in 2004. The company offered her a position outside Jackson, but she had a troubled son and three children still at home and could not commute an hour to work.
"I was angry. I loved my job. I expected to be there until I couldn't walk anymore," she said.
She had to forgive, and she did, allowing herself to clearly see a new endeavor, a new focus. "It felt like I was receiving a complete download."
Wight imagined a circle with a series of missions and at the center was the heart of Jesus. She imagined people spending time together.
Her husband, Robert, owned an available rental property, the house on W. Wilkins Street. He gave her several months to get started, but by September 2005, she had to pay for the space, he told her.
Almost 10 years later, the house still is devoted to her cause.
"Every year, our existence is an affirmation that God wants us to keep going," said Robert Harvey, president of the Together We Can Make a Difference board.
The organization does no fundraising. Yearly pledges from area churches assure it can pay two-thirds of the costs of keeping the house and paying Wight, who refuses to accept any more than half of what she made while working "in the regular world." "You'd think she is working at Burger King," Harvey said.
People inspired to help cover the remaining "raw" costs and all projects, said Harvey, a retired U.S. Army colonel who administered companies. He now lives in Brooklyn and serves as associate pastor at New Jerusalem Christian Fellowship in Cement City.
The programs never seem to suffer.
"The lack of money is amazing, yet she provides for so many with so much," said Nete Olney, a volunteer who has long known Wight.
Addressing the need
More than 900 quilts have been completed and given to veterans. Girls gather at the house to learn to sew or cook while receiving a message about Jesus.
Every year, hundreds of kids participate in the organization's Kids' Explosion, an after-school/summer bible program with 16 sites.
For the "Big Seed," Wight and her helpers haul children to her home to garden and then swim in her neighbor's pool. There and at two other plots, both in Jackson, they produced 554 gallons of produce last year to divide among participating families, Wight said.
"Laundry angels," a program that began with a cancer patient unable to care for herself, picks up and delivers clean clothes to people who don't have machines.
In December, the toy program, completely unfunded until a sudden November influx, provided toys for 4,253 children at Christmas time. Parents were able to choose from the neatly organized shelves of stuffed animals, books and other items. They also took home a bag decorated by local students and filled with hygiene products made possible by donations from Meijer.
"I am so grateful they do something like this for people who are struggling," Malissa Samson of Jackson said as she loaded a Winnie the Pooh doll and other goods into a rusty Ford. She has five children ages 20 to 11 and "finally" got a job at Subway.
The toy store allowed her to give them some presents. "It helps a lot. The cost of living, trying to skimp by."
Without Wight, Samson and others would not benefit because the organization could not operate, Harvey said. Wight is its only paid employee. Conscientious and thrifty with every donated dime, she is the one on the streets who finds and solves the problems.
With only days before Christmas, and her own family holiday preparations to do, Wight was trying to deliver a dinner to a woman with nine children ordered to bed while she awaits the birth of her 10th.
It seems there is no one she is unwilling to aid.
"Some of these people are products of a lot of childhood hurt, a lot of poor decisions, but she treats everybody with the utmost of dignity," Deverell said.
Wight sometimes provides the simplest of services, such as allowing a woman to stop by the house to charge her cell phone, Deverell said, and she helps while also holding people accountable, without allowing them to take advantage.
The house, host to various faith-based missions organized by Wight and others, provides a warm, home feel that clashes with the office or clinical setting some of its patrons might otherwise encounter. "So many people that go there don't have family any more. They are criminals, and they are outcasts, so that house puts family back into the lives of people that really need a family," said Cory Willett, who attends support group meetings at the house for people who have been to prison or jail.
Wight has such a "warm heart" for everyone she encounters, said Willett, now employed and off parole. "she's just got this persona that is all welcoming, and really embodies the spirit of God."
People like her are a "rarity," he said. "It is kind of breathtaking to meet her."
Unwavering faith
It is Wight's faith that motivates and inspires her. She believes in the bible "cover to cover." "I want to share that with my city, my family, anyone I can."
Showing people the Lord is the true mission, Harvey and Wight said.
"There will always be sick people. There will always be poor people," Harvey said. "If we can give hope in addition to the little bit of help, then we've done what Christ sent us to do."
It started with Wight's mother, Muriel McGonegal. "Mom raised us at Cascades Baptist Church," said Wight, whose family has a somewhat storied history in Jackson. Her grandfather helped build Cascade Falls.
She is the youngest of seven born to Muriel and Robert McGonegal, a farmer, metals worker and rental property manager. "(Dad) worked hard. Whenever he sat down, he fell asleep."
The siblings were taught to help others, said Wight's sister, Sally Benedict. More than 130 foster children came through their childhood home.
Wight said she had some wild days - "Let's not talk about that." But motherhood - she has four adult children - brought her to God, the God her own mother knew.
She learned selflessness is the key to being happy. "There is a high that comes from helping someone else," she said. "It's like an addiction."
The joy is in her face. "She glows," Olney said as she busied herself about the toy store. "Exhausted, but glowing."
Wight operates by the philosophy that everyone can do something. "Even if I am handicap and I can't go anywhere, I can lay there and pray," Wight said.
It delights her when people she has assisted continue the good work by helping someone else.
That is at the heart of what she is doing, and what she will continue to do.
"Until I have no breath in my body or Jesus comes," Wight said. "Whatever comes first."