And sometimes it’s a person with a great idea who somehow makes it work (perhaps with the hidden help of angels and the help of strangers?).

Such a person is Trish Gallagher, who one night — while a mother of four children aged 16 to 23 — was going through an especially tough time and spoke to God in her usual familiar way, asking Him to send an angel to help her. “No…” she amended her request, “better send a team of angels, Lord, I don’t think one will do…”.

The words started her thinking. How many people were overwhelmed like her, and might welcome an actual, tangible sign of support? Trish, a former businesswoman, began to research her idea, and soon created a gold lapel angel pin featuring three angels holding hands. She mounted the pin on a card which bore a “Team of Angels” poem (which she wrote), and began to spread the word.

Trisha contacted some chaplains and sent 5000 of the pins overseas to be distributed to our U.S. troops in the Middle East. She donated 2500 more to hospitals and women’s groups in her Pennsylvania community.

“I dropped them off at toll booths, mailboxes, waiting rooms and phone booths,” Trisha says. “I even put a basket of them on my front porch, and encouraged neighbors to take what they needed.”

Her instructions to every recipient were the same: “Keep this pin until you meet someone who needs it more than you do, and then pass it along.” Trish rarely sold the pins, asking only for postage on occasion (and if a recipient couldn’t afford postage, she got her pins anyway). “How I managed to finance this is a story only providence and the angels could explain,” she says. But unexpected donations and support always arrived just as she needed to produce more angels.

Gradually the movement grew, and soon Trish was receiving letters from strangers, most telling of how they had received one of her pins at a time of great need:

“My neighbors lost their child in a fire. Someone gave them your pin….”

As each letter came (and they now number about 30,000), Trish prayed for the person involved. “I found it amazing that a little unexpected angel pin could generate such a response, especially from people who are in pain,” she says.

OVERWHELMED BY LIFE?

I felt like I was at the end of my rope!
· My 25 year marriage was on the verge of ending
· One of my family members was seriously depressed
· My husband was downsized from his job
· Our family was in financial and emotional distress.
· My father was dying of throat cancer.
· I had four children to raise (two starting to rebel!)
· I had not worked outside the home in 23 years.

In desperation, I went to church and asked God to help me. Words poured from my troubled soul, as I scribbled on a scrap of paper, while crying tears of sadness. This is what I wrote, although I had never written a poem before this time of despair:

A TEAM OF ANGELS FOR THE OVERWHELMED
I need a team of angels, Lord -
I don’t think one will do
Please send me all the help from high
For what I am going through.

Guardians to watch over me
And help my soul to cope
I’ll do the best I can to pray
And cherish gifts of faith and hope

I then fashioned a little angel pin from craft supplies for myself, bearing three gold angels, wings intertwined…I called it my “team of angels”

I would like to help others who are overwhelmed as I once was. Out of my broken heart, I found hope and healing by giving. I would like to share my story and encourage others to pass on hope and comfort, with my free bookmarks!

What has come out of this hurt and turmoil? How did I find hope and healing?

· 78,500 people are now wearing my team of angels pin and have the above poem, printed on a small card
· I have received 30,000 letters from people hurting more than myself, who wanted my pin and poem for the overwhelmed
· I have 120,000 FREE bookmarks that I am hoping to pass out this summer, to encourage others who need hope
The letters that have impacted me the most are from:
· A high-ranking military officer that said how much the pins meant to them serving in the desert
· The mother of three children killed by a drunk driver
· A mother from Florida whose daughter was killed by the same serial killer that killed little Adam Walsh in Florida
· The spectators at a trial in Pottsville, PA who wore my pin during the court case (coverage in the Pottsville Gazette newspaper)
· The mother of a young woman waiting for a kidney donor credits the pin (and the surgeon) for a successful operation