“As a 16 year old, being a teenage father, and not having any real concept of what a father looked like, or not knowing what he sounded like, I guess I was really nervous and scared,” Colbert answered.

Colbert now raises Nathan as a single father. As a kid, Colbert remembers that he and his friends had a common bond—most were growing up with single mothers, without fathers in the picture.

“I am so proud of you because you have allowed me to be a father. I am proud of you for allowing my voice to still have meaning in a time and place when our fathers’ voices are becoming echoes. You could have used ‘growing up without a mom’ as a crutch and you have not allowed that to happen. I am also proud of you for allowing me to bring other kids that have been in really rough situations into our home,” Colbert told Nathan.

Colbert has made himself a father-figure to more boys than just Nathan. After working in an emergency shelter for years, Colbert decided he could provide a loving supportive home for others, and welcomed some of the adolescent boys he worked with into his home.

At age 29, Colbert finally searched for and found his own father. Colbert told Nathan, “I wanted you to have a grandfather and at the same time I found myself longing for a father. I had to heal the boy inside of me and at the same time teach the boy in you.” Last Thanksgiving, Colbert and Nathan met their new-found family for the first time. Nathan said, “We went from a small family to a huge one.”

_{Day photos by Daniel Littlewood. Night photos by Naomi Greene.}

Friend and co-worker, Susan Broman, interviewed Kate Pew Wolters about the various foundations she has worked for including one she founded with her late-husband Richard Wolters. Kate remembers getting a phone call one afternoon about the death of her uncle. The voice on the other end of line concluded the conversation saying that Kate’s uncle had left her a few million dollars and asked, “What would you like to do with it?” Kate remembers that she and her husband, Richard, felt the best choice was to use the money to help others. Together, they founded the Kate and Richard Wolters Foundation. Concerning the name, Kate says, “We racked our brains for weeks to think of a catchy name, but we settled on that.”

Although Richard is no longer here, Kate continues to run the foundation the way she hopes he wanted. In addition to her work at the Kate and Richard Wolters Foundation, Kate is also the Board of Directors Chair for the Steelcase Foundation, one of the largest in the Grand Rapids Area.