Family Scholar House started nearly 30 years ago as a small program in Louisville housing for single moms as they completed school.

Today, it's expanded to serve more than 72,000 families across 34 states.

Their mission is to end the cycle of poverty through education.

One woman who helped lead that expansion was once a resident herself.

Here is Maria Wilson story in her own words.

I grew up pretty much in poverty.

I spent probably more than 90% of my childhood homeless in middle school.

At eighth grade, I had my first child at the age of 14, and at that time, after having my child, actually, when I was in hospital, after I delivered him, I received a call from the social worker saying that I will be removed at the placement of my mother into foster care because she tested positive.

I was a teen mom, but I was just really determined to finish school.

Like that was just something I wanted.

I don't I didn't know how I was going to get there.

My dream was to be a lawyer.

I wanted to be a lawyer.

So as life continue happening after I graduated high school, I Googled how to go to college.

So after I enrolled in school, I struggle.

At that time, I end up with my second son.

And so now I'm a single mom of two.

And I just decided that I want something different.

I started attending church and strengthening my faith.

And I met someone at church and they told me about Family Scholar House who is now a graduate now.

I started sending to workshops and I moved up the list and I ended up moving into Family Scholar House.

At that time, I enrolled in the University of Louisville.

And so I started teaching classes and just being here and having the support and having the families.

And they just basically just poured into me.

And it was just different things that I didn't realize that I needed to work through to get to where I wanted to be.

But having like the family, having the support, having the advocacy of just having a family advocate, academic advocate.

And they helped work through all of these barriers and these things that I was pretty much, you know, dealing with and going through.

I use this as the best example that I use this all the time.

This is the best way I can explain it, is that I had the drive and the determination.

Even as a kid, I didn't.

I knew that I knew, okay, I can Google.

Google told me how to get to the next step.

However, it's just like a broken car in a garage.

You can have the best tools in the world.

You can have this broken car, but the instruction manual is going to be the key to fixing that car.

And I feel like that family's car house was an instruction manual for me.

They were the instruction manual to help me to become who I was already destined to be, but actually had a conversation with my son today.

And he said these were the best years of his life.

He said that, you know, these were the times that he actually, for the first time, had me, that I wasn't trying to survive, but I was able to thrive.

While here, my son, he went to a buddy book club and he went to the ELC he attended there.

That was his foundation.

He was two at the time, which was an excellent education.

So now he's thriving in high school right now, and he's strong academically because his foundation was strong as well.

I graduated from university level with a degree in Justice Administration and communications.

Then I decided to enroll back into school and I went to Washington University in Saint Louis Law School, and I graduated from WashU.

And now I work as the affiliate program director, which I just came back from working within our affiliates today, but just taken this program and having it all over the country and supporting these other organizations so that other kids don't have to Google how to go to college or have to figure it out or have to move out of their own comfort zone or go somewhere else to a different state because they don't offer that help in their city.

So I'm blessed with the opportunity that I can go out and if it's not, work to me as purpose.

So someone did it for me.

So I owe it to give back to all the other moms and dads and other single parents that want the opportunities that I was given.

Proud of Maria, The Family Scholar House offers services to support families through their educational journey, like academic and career coaching, financial education, affordable housing, apprenticeship programs and health and wellness coaching.

You can learn more about the Family Scholar House on this weekend's Inside Louisville with Kelsey Starks, which also features Shirley's Way, a nonprofit that is taking charitable gaming to a whole new level.

Giving back is the focus of the next inside Louisville.

This Sunday at noon Eastern, 11 a.m. Central right here on KCET.