In 2004 Brenda Lovelady Spahn began the Lovelady ministry by inviting inmates from Tutwiler Prison into her home. She began the ministry with her daughter, Melinda MeGahee, who now serves as the Executive Director of The Lovelady Center. They had both been praying with the women at the Birmingham Work Release Center to bring hope to them through the love and promises of Jesus Christ. Brenda heard some of the women talk about going through halfway houses and how little those places had helped them. This was the inspiration for Brenda’s concept of a “wholeway house.” “Because God doesn’t do anything halfway,” she often says. Brenda decided that she wanted to open the doors of her own home to female inmates and give them an opportunity to live a new life.

Lovelady became an overnight success. Referrals from various criminal justice entities across the state poured in. The number of women in need of assistance through her ministry prompted Brenda to seek a facility that could accommodate more women than her home. “When I crossed the threshold of the former East End Memorial Hospital in East Lake, I realized, ‘This is what You want, Lord,’” Brenda recounts. “I knew there was no way at that moment to calculate how many lives could change in a place that big. Everyone thought I’d lost my mind but God made it happen and we moved into the building in October of 2005.”

As the amount of women needing help increased another facet of need was realized. Wherever possible, the women coming through the program desperately needed to have their children with them. A mother cannot successfully rehabilitate without restoring her relationship with her children and she cannot successfully parent until she has seen appropriate behavior modeled for her. The program shifted and children were now allowed to come live at The Center with their mothers. Breaking the cycle of addiction and poverty by meeting the needs of the children of addicted mothers became a priority. Teaching women how to be better mothers and nurturing their relationships became the norm.