Women Who Inspire Us: Joy Reyes

We are beyond thrilled to get to know Joy Reyes. Through her work as founder of New Hope Girls, Joy leads with both heart and intention, creating meaningful impact and connection for women and families. 

Her perspective is a reminder that lasting change often begins with everyday acts of courage, care, and purpose.

As a mother and leader, Joy offers a perspective that feels both grounding and inspiring. For the ABLE woman, her story is a beautiful reminder that living with purpose can shape not only our own lives, but the lives of others. Meet Joy Reyes, a woman who inspires us.

Women Who Inspire Us: Joy Reyes

1. So much of your story is about building something meaningful from the ground up, through both the small moments and life-changing leaps of faith. In your view, what can creating good actually look like in everyday life for women today?

I think we’ve overcomplicated what it means to make a difference. We wait for the big moment, the grand gesture, the perfect plan and meanwhile, the need is right in front of us. 

For me, creating good started with noticing. A child I couldn’t look away from. A broken system I couldn’t stop thinking about. 

Creating good in everyday life looks like refusing to unsee what you’ve seen. It’s the woman who chooses to spend with intention, the neighbor who shows up, the mom who teaches her kids that other people’s pain is our problem too. 

It doesn’t always look heroic. It often looks like ordinary people who just refuse to do nothing.

Read more: Women Who Inspire Us: Nancy Youssef on Style, Leadership, and Global Impact

2. You lead with so much heart, but also with real action. How has your understanding of impact evolved over time, from wanting to help, to building something sustainable that truly changes lives?

Early on, I thought impact was about coming in with answers, with resources, with solutions. What I’ve learned is that sustainable impact is about belonging. The girls in our homes don’t just need a meal or a safe bed.

They need to know they are someone’s daughter. They need to see a future. Impact evolved for me when I stopped asking “what do these girls need?” and started asking “who do they need to become?”

That shift from charity to restoration changed everything about how we build New Hope Girls. We’re not running programs. We’re building a family. And families take time, and mess, and commitment, and faith that you’ll still be there tomorrow.

3. For women who are juggling a lot, work, family, caregiving, community — what have you learned about staying connected to purpose in a season that feels full?

Honestly? I’ve had to make peace with the fact that I can’t do it all and that’s not failure, that’s faithfulness. Purpose doesn’t have to be loud to be real. 

Some of my most grounding moments have come in the quietest places: in a conversation with one of our girls, in prayer before the day starts, in the reminder that God didn’t call me to carry everything — He called me to be faithful with what’s in front of me. When I’m feeling most stretched, I go back to my why. Not a strategy. Not a metric. 

A face. A name. A girl who is alive and healing and dreaming because someone said yes. That re-centers me every single time.

4. As a mother and a leader, how has motherhood shaped the way you think about courage, compassion, and the kind of world we’re creating for the next generation of girls?

Motherhood has informed so much of the culture of New Hope Girls. The question “What would I want for my daughter?” Has become the litmus test for program creation. 

As a mother, I don’t see the girls in our homes as “cases” or “survivors”, I see them as daughters. Someone’s daughters who had been failed by the very people meant to protect them. That became the fire. 

I want my own children to grow up knowing that courage isn’t the absence of fear; it’s choosing love anyway. And I want the next generation of girls, including the ones who came through our doors with nothing, to know that they are worth fighting for. 

That is the world I’m trying to build. Not just for my kids. For all of them.

5. ABLE women care deeply and want their purchases to mean something. When a woman chooses to spend with intention, what kind of ripple effect do you believe that creates, in her own life, and in the lives of other women she may never meet?

Every bag our artisan workshop produces is stitched together by a woman who has walked through something hard and come out with dignity intact. When a woman chooses to buy with intention, she’s not just purchasing a product. 

She’s saying: your story matters. Your hands matter. Your future matters. That message travels. It reaches a woman in the Dominican Republic who now has a living wage, who goes home and feeds her children, who tells her daughter-you can build something. 

And it travels back to the woman who made the purchase, reminding her that her choices have weight, that she is connected to something larger than herself. We are more linked to each other than we realize. Intentional spending is one of the most accessible acts of solidarity there is.

RAPID FIRE QUESTIONS!

Coffee after 3:00, Y or N?  

Joy: Y — always.

Name a place that always brings you peace.  

Joy: The water- the ocean

A word that means “hope” to you? 

Joy: Sisterhood.

Morning ritual you’ll never skip?  

Joy: Prayer.