About Us

EXECUTIVE DIRECTORS’ BIO

Pathway To Hope (PTH) is a Non-Profit 501(c) 3 organization, founded by Dick and Sharon Lawrenz in December of 2000. It exists to encourage, educate, and empower those families and individuals living with mental illness.

Dick and Sharon’s youngest son was diagnosed with mental illness at age eleven. PTH became a dream of theirs so that no family or individual would have to navigate the uncharted waters of mental illness alone. Combining their experience and expertise with that of others, Dick and Sharon started Pathway To Hope. Dick now works full-time as a hospice chaplain and serves on the Board of Directors of Pathway To Hope.

The primary focus of Pathway To Hope is education and support for families and individuals living with mental illness. PTH has formed partnerships with various community agencies and resources in order to facilitate needed services quickly and allow families to become most effective in their advocacy for their loved ones. They also offer weekly support groups – one for families and one for consumers. In addition, Pathway To Hope also offers two courses for family members and caregivers of adults, as well as children and adolescents living with mental illness, called With Hope In Mind and With Hope In Mind: Beginnings. These courses are offered at various locations around the Kansas City Metro area throughout the year.

Sharon is honored to serve as a member (at-large) of the Johnson County Mental Health Board of Directors, a position to which she was appointed in April, 2006, and will serve for a two-year term. She is excited about the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of those affected by mental illness living in Johnson County, Kansas. Sharon received her Bachelor’s Degree in Management and Human Relations from Mid-America Nazarene University. Besides her career as a mother and wife, she has held various volunteer positions including Sunday School Superintendent, president of a local Christian Woman’s Club, and state president of a denomination’s woman’s group. She has worked in office settings and as a paraprofessional with behavior disordered children in a local middle school. Sharon has also worked as a paraprofessional for the Los Angeles County Schools with Trainable Mentally Handicapped young people (ages 18-22).

Sharon combines her experience, personality, faith, and humor to present a compassionate, hope-filled message to those whose lives have been touched by mental illness. She is available as a speaker, as well as a trainer.

Pathway To Hope depends upon donations, grants, and in-kind gifts in order to meet their goals and objectives and minister to the needs of society’s forgotten population…the mentally ill.

FINANCIALS

2006 990
2005 990