In May, 2000, Caroline Boudreaux of Austin, TX seemed to “have it all.” She was just 30 years old, working in TV advertising sales and making more money than she ever imagined possible. Yet she remained deeply unhappy and unfulfilled.
“I drove a nice car, lived in a beautiful condo and led an active social life. Still, I felt SO empty inside,” she recalls. “I felt like I was being wasted. I knew in my heart that I had a higher purpose that I wasn’t fulfilling.”
Inspired to make a change, Caroline quit her lucrative job and took a year-long trip around the world with her best friend. Her year-long sabbatical was not intended as a way to find that higher purpose, but find it she did.
While visiting a small village in India, Caroline was invited to the home of a local family that had taken in over 100 orphaned children. She was stunned by what she witnessed there.
“I had never seen an orphaned child before in my life. Every single one of them was bald, and their clothes were tattered and absolutely filthy,” Boudreaux recalls.
“Some were malnourished and some were puffed out, but all of them had empty looking eyes. And they were all vying for our attention, asking for a hug from us or to touch our hands. There were so many, and every single one was precious and perfect, desperately in need of love, attention—someone to care. I knew I had to do something.’”
After witnessing such harsh realities faced by orphans in the developing world, many of whom suffer greatly from hunger, disease, and a lack of love, Caroline Boudreaux founded The Miracle Foundation (www.MiracleFoundation.org) on Mother’s Day in 2000. The Austin-based nonprofit is dedicated to empowering orphans to reach their full potential by revolutionizing the way orphanages are run, worldwide (starting in India).
Caroline’s work with Miracle has become her life’s work. For sixteen years, she has tackled foreign barriers, recruited a world-class board and staff, and enlisted the help of hundreds of business people, doctors, donors and volunteers to fix a broken system.
To date, Miracle Foundation has given thousands of orphans in 24 orphanages a childhood that would have otherwise been impossible. What’s more, the children grow up in a happy, healthy, loving environment and can look forward to a future that includes vocational training or even a college education.
Miracle transforms struggling orphanages from barely surviving to totally thriving and empowers them to transition their care from one characterized by “warden and inmate” to “family and child.” Orphanages that partner with Miracle are provided with paired funding and capacity-building trainings to provide a better quality of care for their children. They receive various kinds of help to bring their operations up to a high standard – from housemother training to computers loaded with accounting software.
Caroline couldn’t be happier or more fulfilled, in her “second act” career!
“I now have everything money can’t buy,” she says. “I have this great mission and great work now. It’s given me something so powerful to do.”