For some, International Women’s Day is about global movements and glass ceilings. But for 68-year-old Moreen Medas, womanhood has always been defined by a quieter, more personal form of strength: the power to provide a home for those who have none.
Sitting down to reflect on a life spanning nearly seven decades, Medas doesn’t just count her own two children, Rayon and Devon. She counts the “everybody” of her community. When asked how many children she has helped raise over the years, she paused, tallying names like Yasmeen, Ederle Tidiane, Junior, before landing on a modest estimate.
“I think about fifteen,” she said, though the stories that followed suggested the number is much higher. “Everybody. I always try to help the less fortunate because it’s only who feels it knows it.”
Moreen’s passion for childcare wasn’t a hobby; it was a mission born from a difficult childhood. Growing up with a sick mother and living with people who did not always treat her with kindness, she made a silent vow.
“I never wanted to see any child treated [that way],” she explained. “I never liked to see a child in need, or hungry, or who didn’t have a mother.”
By her teens, Medas was already babysitting children. This lifelong commitment saw her balancing the demands of her own household while working as a domestic worker.
Remarkably, she often took the modest wages she earned from one family and split them in half to buy food for other neighborhood children whose mothers were struggling.
The stories Medas shared are as heartbreaking as they are inspiring. She recalls taking in a 15-year-old girl named Britany [not her real name], who had lost her mother and was struggling to care for a baby of her own. Medas took them both in, raising the child as her own for six years without ever asking for a dollar in return.
Not every story has a fairy-tale ending. Medas speaks candidly about the “strangers” and nieces who “don’t look back” or offer thanks now that she is older. She speaks of the heartbreak of a niece she tried to reform who eventually had to be sent to a home due to behavioral issues.
Yet, there is no bitterness in her voice.
“It doesn’t really bother me if they don’t look back,” she says with a shrug of practiced grace. “I am satisfied that I did my best. I have no regrets because God has made my children comfortable. I might not get [the love] from them, but I get it from my own.”
At 68, Medas hasn’t slowed down. Now a dedicated Bible student, she spends her time learning and sharing principles of love, marriage, and family. For her, the “most satisfying part” isn’t accolades or wealth, it’s seeing the children she helped through school make something of themselves.
“I’m happy that I could have done it so they can get a life and be successful today,” she said.
As the world celebrates International Women’s Day, Moreen Medas stands as a testament to the “silent” pillars of society, the women who work domestic jobs, split their grocery money with neighbors, and open their doors to the motherless. She is a woman who turned her own history of lack into a lifetime of abundance for others.
