02/05/2026
This page has been with me since the very beginning of my adulthood, just after moving to Arizona. Long before I had language for it, I was an at-risk young person navigating a rough and uncertain upbringing, trying to figure out who I was and how to build a life from the pieces I had in front of me.
This page quietly held space for that becoming. It has sat through seasons of both tragedy and triumph, and had its own moments of glory along the way.
It began as the blog of a girl learning about life as a brand-new adult, trying to make sense of the world and her place in it. It transformed into raising money for cancer research. It waded through the era when memes became “a thing” and followed me as I waged war on multiple health issues, including heart surgery, sinus surgery, and a whole host of other unexpected adventures.
It waited patiently as I set it aside to focus on fundraisers for charities and eventually stepped into motherhood in many forms: mom, foster mom, plant mom, dog mom, chicken mom, duck mom, and loving just about anything else within my reach.
More than anything, though, this page has always been a place of genuine. Genuine joy. Genuine struggle. Genuine questions. Genuine hope. A place shaped by a deep desire to make the world a better place, informed by lived experience and faith rather than theory or what the world told me I could or could not do.
Today, this page turns a new chapter.
For several years now, I have carried something close to my heart: the vision of a community center. A place rooted in acts of love. A place where foster youth, families, and others walking through hard seasons can come to belong, learn, grow, and be supported in real and practical ways. A place that takes the lessons I’ve learned through hardship, healing, community, and restoration and turns them outward so others don’t have to walk alone.
This page is becoming the home for that vision.
Moving forward, it will reflect the work of Acts in the Desert, a community center nonprofit I am building here in Southern Arizona. This space will share the heart, progress, and stories behind that work, along with the values and lessons that continue to shape it. My hope is that it becomes a window into the kind of community we are creating together, one where young people are seen, known, and loved as they grow toward sustainable futures.
If you have been here for years or you are just arriving, I am grateful you are reading this. I hope you will stay, learn more, and maybe even walk alongside us as this next season unfolds.
— Samantha Boettcher
