Touching from the Heart

LEXINGTON, Ky. (WTVQ) — Touching from the Heart is a day fully dedicated to spoiling battered women, addicts, homeless women, or just any women that have fallen on hard times.

A group of 25 survivors told us they felt pretty, after a day of getting their hair and nails done at the Summit Salon Academy where they ate brunch.

From there they went to the Urban Squirrel where they were able to choose a pretty outfit paired with shoes and accessories.

They then were served a fancy meal — something many of these ladies say they weren’t used to.

They were also given an Easter basket.

“I’ve never had anybody do the things they’ve done for me as they’ve done from Salvation Army and here,” says Tabetha Hinkle, a survivor. “This is awesome I’m speechless.”

“We just walked in and we were just in awe ya know cause you don’t expect things I have cold chills,” says survivor Benika Hubbard. “You don’t expect things like this.”

Angelia Drake says she puts on this day for these women — with a lot of help from several donors — because she knows what it’s like.

“For them to see someone who has been the struggle and that they’ve overcome because a lot of times we just don’t know nobody that’s been through something we’ve been through,” says Drake.

She’s walked in their shoes before.

“My story is I did a lot of time a lot of incarceration,” says Drake. “I suffered from disease of addiction actually two addictions.

She says she chooses 25 women to spoil, for each year she spent out there in the “wilderness”.

Some of the survivors were inspired by Drake to share their stories.

“Im a domestic violence survivor and from there I turned to drugs to ya know kind of mask the pain,” says Hubbard.

“My parents divorced, it was a broken home and a lot of pain and I became an addict,” says Hinkle. “I was a meth addict from the age 15 and up.”

The women say to have had a day like this, full of so much hope, is something they will never forget.