Our Visionary Founder

While most of us slowly and painstakingly piece together the puzzle called our life mission, some rare souls seem to have known since childhood what they came here to do. Our founder, Tangela Thornton, is among them. As a teenager, she began rescuing classmates and others who needed a safe and loving temporary home. She hasn’t stopped.

Today, Tangela—lovingly called “Mama T”—is a force of nature, attracting young women who need help and others who are inspired to help them. For years, she sheltered them in her home. There, she developed a structured program. With a cadre of friends, she successfully coached, mentored, and encouraged them to shed addictions, low self-esteem, and other scars of abandonment and abuse.

The life experiences the women shared with Tangela made her  aware of the inevitability of homelessness for so many who leave the foster care system. Their transformations inspired her to reach more of them.

When she discovered a former Catholic boarding school with a seven-acre campus in Chicago’s south suburbs was on the market, she bought it. Applying the same enthusiasm and loving, no-nonsense approach she leverages with the young women, Tangela began dramatically transforming the buildings and the bedrooms into a comfortable living environment.

“I didn’t want it to look or feel institutional,” she explained. The décor, inside and out, reflects love and respect for young women who may never have received either.

Now licensed as a child welfare agency in the state of Illinois, The UP House that Tangela built is a solid platform from which young women who are aging out of foster care can see a grander vision of themselves, complete their educational goals, and embrace a brighter, self-sustainable future.