Amy Lawler’s 3:11 Project Celebrates 1 Year Anniversary

FOX VALLEY, IL - During the previous year Amy Lawler, resident of Montgomery, IL, has helped 600 families and counting through her non-for-profit charity organization: 3:11 Project. Raising nearly $10,000 in goods, donations, and services, 3:11 Project has become synonymous with support, love and friendship in the Fox Valley area.

Founded only one year ago, July of 2017, 3:11 Project was the visionary venture of a business woman who felt her calling. No longer able to idly sit by as her neighbors and community cried out for help, Lawler left her 10 year career as a Compliance Manager at United Healthcare and channeled that business-know-how and that leadership into a powerful, force of compassion and service.

Not quite a year ago, 3:11 Project was registered with the State of Illinois and was featured in the Daily Herald. Since then, Amy Lawler has partnered with Mercy Housing, Thrivent Financial, Go with the Flow!, Rhea Lana, Songs of Life, Safe Families, and Melaleuca (to name just a few!). Her hugely successful holiday drive was featured in the Kane County Chronicle and just this month she reached 1800 followers. With 50 volunteers and more joining each day, Lawler and 3:11 Project have been able to families who have lost loved ones, who have experienced financial hardship, who have coped with illness, and who have had to deal with drastic, unexpected life changes.

Little wins, make big impacts

Although 3:11 Project has had some major triumphs this year – growing its base and its partnerships exponentially – Lawler said, “I had a few goals that I had hoped to accomplish before our one year anniversary. Some of them were big ones, like growing our network. But the most important goal was to help more and more families: Getting a woman who is homeless safe and secure shelter, feeding a family for three months, getting a single mother a washer and dryer, and helping nearly two dozen girls get hygiene products…”

And for Lawler, that’s what this is all about. It’s not just the big strokes, but the little efforts that go such a long way. She says that perhaps the most common way people help each other is by buying gas cards for people who have fallen on hard times, or by donating gently-used clothes and appliances that go to a home in need. That is what 3:11 Project is all about: “Our hands and our feet, our words and our hearts, will not tire until we have helped everyone.” Named for a Bible verse found in Luke, 3:11 – “Anyone who has two shirts should share with the one who has none, and anyone who has food should do the same.”

50 Volunteers support the 3:11 Project cause

Lawler is quick to point out that she does not do this alone. She is supported by family and friends, but also by more than fifty neighbors, strangers and colleagues. Families who want to give, who to do more, who want to be part of the solution and not the problem, all join together to pick up those who need a helping hand. She said, “Its about community really. I am just the dispatcher.” When pressed she eventually admitted, “Sure, I do a lot of the driving, the picking up and the dropping off – but if it wasn’t for everyone else this wouldn’t work. Even my kids help! They sort and bag, and are troopers when we have to make runs throughout the day.”

Big hopes for the year to come

Next year, Lawler hopes to double her numbers. She hopes to help over 1,000 families, double her volunteers, and truly serve the mission of helping the Fox Valley area. She acknowledged that there is still so much work to do and that the Fox Valley region is an enormous geographic area. But her plan is to create a movement that is viral – something small, started in her own garage and spreading to hundreds of people; and hopefully, someday the world.