Kathy Izard is an award-winning author and speaker who has helped bring transformation to Charlotte in homelessness, housing, and mental health.

Kathy writes inspirational nonfiction for adults including, The Hundred Story Home, The Last Ordinary Hour and her newest release, Trust the Whisper (June 2024). She has also written two books for children A Good Night for Mr Coleman and Grace Heard a Whisper to encourage kids to dream big and listen for their purpose. Through Women | Faith & Story, Kathy loves helping women find faith in their story with 1:1 mentoring, workshops and retreats. She is the recipient of a Christopher Award, the Bank of America Neighborhood Hero Award, 2022 Charlotte Woman of the Year, and recognized as a William J. Clinton Distinguished Guest Lecturer.

Hey! I’m Kathy -

We tend to say “hey!” instead of “hi!” here in Charlotte, NC where I have lived for over thirty years. I was born and raised in a family of three daughters in El Paso, Texas. (that is me below, the youngest “Green Girl” in matching plaid skirts.) My father always believed my sisters and I could change the world. He used to tell me, “You can do Anything. Really, Anything.” I don’t know that I really believed him, but his message imprinted on my heart. By the time I was married to my soulmate, Charlie, (see handsome guy below) and we had four daughters of our own (yep, including a set of twins), I had big dreams for my girls, but I had forgotten what my own were.

At the time, I was forty-four with a great family, a graphic design business, but no idea what I wanted to do with my life. In 2007, Denver Moore, a formerly homeless man turned best-selling author of Same Kind of Different As Me, changed all that. On a tour of the soup kitchen in Charlotte where I volunteered, Denver asked me four questions that changed my life forever. If you read The Hundred Story Home, you know what happened. But if you didn’t, that meeting with Denver inspired me to quit my job to begin serving the chronically homeless and ultimately, helped raise $10 million to build Charlotte’s first permanent supportive housing.

That decision of trying to help those experiencing homelessness was completely unexpected but at the same time, I now believe, completely by design. My path over the last fifteen years involved so much serendipity and God-instance that I finally wrote it all down in The Hundred Story Home. In helping people experiencing homelessness, I found my own way home. It led me to help build Moore Place and HopeWay (Mental Health Treatment) as well as write four more books.

In my writing and through my new venture Women | Faith & Story workshops and retreats, I want to inspire you to have courage to listen to what’s calling you—whatever it is, big or small. I call it “Trust the Whisper.”

Each of us have a call, patiently waiting and whispering to us. And when you finally hear it, you either have to spend the rest of your life answering, or pretending you never heard it.

Be willing to Listen. Be willing to Let Go. Be willing to take that Leap of Faith.

That whisper is something you are meant to do in this world and as my dad always told me: You can do Anything. Really, Anything.

- Kathy