Andrea Hancock’s desire to give back led to the launch of P.E.S.T. Relief International. Photo: Andrea Hancock
Ever since her first mission trip in 1997, Mattress Safe Vice President Andrea Hancock has been hooked on touching the lives of people who are in need and desperate to find hope. Hancock was inspired to take things further after a trip to Honduras in 2012, in which she brought her Atlanta-based company’s mattress covers for three orphanages.
“The children were thrilled to see their beds transformed into a fresh new sleeping area,” she says. “It was the highlight of my life. I was also able to participate in a feeding program we now support. I almost cried the first time I dipped my spoon into the rice and fed a child who had the gift of this one meal a day.”
The experience led Hancock to launch Professionals, Empowering, Sustaining & Transforming (P.E.S.T.) Relief International. Her desire is to serve the destitute and the defenseless, both in the United States and globally. At press time, the organization was completing its nonprofit status so it could help fund additional mission trips to Honduras and build an orphanage in Atlanta, where Hancock’s church and surrounding neighborhood could be lifelines for local children in need.
“We already have a planning and development team in place,” she says. “The home will accommodate children from the ages of 8 through 11, plus sibling groups where there are too many siblings for one family to house in the foster care system.”
Hancock hopes to fund the building within five years, with the assistance of the pest management industry, and be able to sustain the operation for years to come.
The organization provides more details about the project on its website, PESTReliefInternational.com. There also will be a P.E.S.T. booth at PestWorld in Nashville later this year.
“I invite everyone to join me in this effort,” she says. “Together as an industry, we can be partners in bringing relief to the hopeless.”
You can reach PMP Managing Editor Heather Gooch at hgooch@northcoastmedia.net, 330-321-9754.
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