Mary Pringle, President of LaBelle Kiwanis, recently gave a virtual keynote speech for Florida Kiwanis. She told her story of overcoming teen pregnancy, abusive relationships, co-dependency, and how all of these challenges fostered her dedication to her many kids. It was a fitting story for the president of a service organization that focuses on helping children.

“To give you a little background to who I am today, it is important to share where my roots are from- my mother is the second oldest of twelve children, my father the youngest of nine. Both families deeply rooted in the Catholic religion. I have an abundance of memories with extended family, raised in the Catholic faith. I believe my core values came from being expected to pull your weight in all aspects of life,” she said.

“We would move to a new home, new school about every 2 years. As a child it was difficult to build strong friendships, making new friends trying to fit in again and again and again. Each place has vivid memories which built character within me.”

However, she said, “I was fortunate to have a quality education, solid religious base, a foundation of married parents, never experiencing divorce or separation. I witnessed a working couple, having disagreements and resolutions. We had the American dream in my opinion.”

At a young age, Pringle said she gravitated to wanting to help the less fortunate and remembers how much it bothered her deep inside. “I dreamed of being a missionary, working in orphanages, helping all the children in the world who needed food.”

Instead, she found herself pregnant at the age of 17 and struggling to navigate abruptly being thrown into adulthood, “Needless to say it was not long before I knew I had chosen a hard road to travel. My focus was my baby, how I had to push forward to provide for my baby. I cherished being a mom. My world was falling apart, very quickly. It was a blur my senior year, making one bad decision after another. It took me living homeless, finding myself in situations I could not have imagined, had I not chose this path.”

She ended up married to an abusive alcoholic, she explained, “Which I was never going to be able to depend on to support us. I experienced horrendous emotional abuse trying to fix one bad situation after another. I was in a cycle I didn’t know how to stop. My only sanity was going to college where I had feelings of normalcy. I met amazing people each step of the journey which pushed me back to reality when it was needed.” she went on to add, “I went to college day by day, every day. I managed the house, three young children, all the financial paperwork to keep food on the table and the lot rent paid along with child care through welfare as well as financial aid for school. Life was not easy, I always saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Every day I could wake up fresh with positive thoughts.”

As she struggled through challenges, she had an epiphany of sorts, realizing she not only had to admit to herself that she was the daughter of an alcoholic, she also suffered from co-dependency.

“I checked into an intensive Adult Children of Alcoholics group, to learn about me. This was 1987, upon leaving this week long session I had no clue who I was, my beliefs were in question about all aspects of my life, my life seemed grey and fuzzy. The only thing clear was what I wanted in my future. I knew everything I didn’t want yet I didn’t know how to achieve this new vision of what I wanted. I wasn’t even sure if it was a real life to have or fantasy.”

As a divorced single mother, Pringle wanted to focus on providing stability, love and acceptance for her family. She filled that role so well, she even eventually became a foster parent, and moved to adoption quickly after that.

“Remember that co-dependency, keeping myself in check was not something I did well. I was soon fostering six children and more on weekends,” said Pringle.

Life went on, and she was able to focus on helping children in need, many deemed “unadoptable” by the system, due to their disabilities. But Mary and her family have never seen it that way. They gathered resources and helped each child to work through any difficulties they had.

“We soon were busting at the seams with nine children on a daily basis. I was now working up to three jobs, and fostering nine children. Life was crazy looking back although at the time I was keeping our family moving forward.”

The Pringle family came upon one more child to adopt in 2016, an adoption plan was made due to drug addiction and the mother’s failure to bond with the unborn child.
“Her (the mother’s) addiction to drugs was a powerful one and we moved forward with the adoption of my now 4 year old.”

Adoption after adoption, Mary Pringle and her ever-growing, diverse family expanded and adapted. She researched and learned about developmental disabilities and conditions for each individual child and found what worked best for them to not just exist but to thrive. While the family and staff work hard and are often stretched thin, there is no shortage of unconditional love.

She ended her amazing speech by saying, “Thank you for allowing me to share my story, there is so much more to share. One day a book will tell all. One child, one community at a time, pay it forward.”