Today we’d like to introduce you to Kim Gomez.
Hi Kim, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
In 2023, during a quiet moment of prayer, Kim Gomez experienced something she describes as unmistakable clarity. The Holy Spirit spoke to her heart with words she says she heard “loud and clear.”
“Go and tell my daughters about me.”
In that moment, she felt God asking her to start a nonprofit. The name came immediately: Kourageous Vision.
“Kourageous is me and the girls, the bravery it takes to keep going,” Gomez explains. “Vision is the bigger picture God sees for our lives, even when we can’t see it ourselves.”
What began as obedience to a spiritual prompting would soon grow into a mission impacting women across Utah, especially those society often overlooks.
A Mission Begins Behind Prison Walls
The first outreach of Kourageous Vision launched inside the Utah State Prison, where Gomez began leading a small gathering in a prison break room with six women.
Week by week, attendance grew.
Eventually, the class became one of the largest women’s gatherings in the facility, drawing 78 women every Saturday. Gomez taught life skills, emotional resilience, and faith-centered topics designed to help participants see beyond their current circumstances.
“The goal wasn’t just teaching,” she says. “It was restoring hope, helping women believe their story wasn’t over.”
For Gomez, the work felt deeply personal. Much of what she shared came from lived experience.
A Childhood Marked by Change
Gomez grew up in a loving home in Salt Lake City alongside her parents and three younger siblings. But her parents’ divorce during childhood shattered the stability she once knew. Following a custody battle, she moved with her mother to Ogden, leaving behind familiar surroundings and a sense of security.
Though she eventually returned to live with her father, stability proved temporary. As a teenager, family circumstances forced her into independence far earlier than expected. By sixteen, she was couch-surfing and searching for belonging.
“I had no emotional stability and no clear direction,” she recalls. “I was just trying to survive.”
Kind families helped her along the way, opening their homes and modeling resilience despite their own struggles. Yet her young adulthood became marked by homelessness, abusive relationships, substance use, and period of time in jail. .
Searching for Meaning
Determined to find purpose, Gomez attended various trade schools and worked wherever opportunities appeared, from fast food restaurants to reception desks. Eventually, she moved to Las Vegas, hoping for a fresh start. Still in addiction, she believed there has to be more.
She worked as a lifeguard at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino and later secured a position as a flight attendant with National Airlines, eventually becoming a First Class Lead Flight Attendant.
Outwardly, life looked successful. Internally, addiction increased and unresolved trauma persisted.
“There’s nothing glamorous about addiction,” Gomez says. “I was hurting myself and the people I loved while pretending everything was fine.”
After the airline filed for bankruptcy, she returned to Utah as a single mother, determined to rebuild, but cycles of hardship continued.
Rock Bottom and Redemption
Leaving another abusive relationship led Gomez and her daughters into homelessness, living out of their car while she struggled with addiction and emotional exhaustion.
At her lowest point, she attended a church service with her mother at The Door Christian Fellowship Church.
There, she surrendered her life to Jesus Christ.
She describes the moment as transformative, a radical turning point that freed her from addiction and shame while giving her a renewed sense of purpose.
“For the first time, I understood that God wasn’t distant,” she says. “He was walking with me through everything.”
Building Community One Woman at a Time
In the years that followed, Gomez began mentoring women informally, sharing encouragement and practical guidance rooted in faith and lived experience.
She launched gatherings called Coffee Connection Christ, originally hosted in her home. The meetings grew quickly, creating a space where women could build connection, discuss life challenges, and find encouragement together.
Her advocacy expanded into professional spaces as well. She spoke at Brigham Young University, delivering a presentation titled Know Your Worth, focused on confidence, career readiness, and personal value.
Through mentoring women from diverse backgrounds, professionals, recovering addicts, formerly homeless individuals, she recognized a universal truth: pain does not discriminate, but neither does hope.
The Vision Expands
Kourageous Vision formally launched with the collaboration of like-minded women who shared Gomez’s passion for service. Today, the nonprofit operates across multiple environments in Utah, including sober living homes, treatment centers, transitional housing programs, and prison ministry settings.
Its mission is to equip women with mentorship, resources, and community support so they can rebuild their lives with confidence and faith.
The organization places special emphasis on incarcerated women preparing for reentry into society. While institutional programs address logistics such as employment or housing, Gomez believes relational support is often missing.
“Women need community,” she says. “They need someone who believes in them before they believe in themselves.”
A Calling Lived Daily
Alongside leading Kourageous Vision, Gomez serves professionally as an Executive Assistant. Balancing full-time work with nonprofit leadership requires discipline and commitment.
Her guiding principle is simple: “Two things a day, period.”
Each evening and weekend becomes an opportunity to build partnerships, mentor women, develop programs, and expand outreach.
The response from the community has exceeded expectations. Volunteers, mentors, and supporters from diverse backgrounds have rallied around the mission, united by a shared desire to uplift others.
More Than an Organization
Today, Kourageous Vision stands as more than a nonprofit. It is a platform where women share stories, rediscover purpose, and encourage one another toward healing and growth.
For Gomez, the work is deeply personal but universally relevant.
“It amazes me how women from completely different walks of life share similar wounds,” she says. “But they also share the same capacity for courage.”
Her vision remains rooted in the calling she received in 2023, to remind women of their worth and help them see beyond present circumstances.
“My purpose,” Gomez says, “is to walk alongside women as they step into a new path, a new direction, and a new life.”
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It has been twenty-seven years since the life of addiction and brokenness that once defined my story, a lifetime marked not only by healing, but by transformation.
Prior to launching Kourageous Vision, I participated in a magazine interview that became a pivotal moment in my journey. For the first time, I publicly shared the full truth of my past. For years, I had carried a quiet concern about how my history might be perceived within professional spaces, among peers, colleagues, and organizational leadership. The fear of judgment, ridicule, or potential consequences in my career kept me guarded, carefully separating who I had been from who I had become.
One of the hardest challenges was confronting the possibility that vulnerability might diminish credibility, that honesty about my past could overshadow my professional accomplishments or redefine how others perceived my leadership. Silence felt protective, yet it came at the cost of authenticity.
When the article was finally published, everything shifted. My story was no longer hidden. Instead of fear, I experienced an overwhelming sense of freedom. The opinions I once worried about no longer held authority over my identity. What I had once viewed as a liability became a source of strength. It was clear to me that Jesus had taken hold of my life, and that I was now called to proclaim the hope, redemption, and restoration that only He can bring. Sharing my story no longer felt risky, it felt like purpose.
The second profound challenge has been witnessing the systemic barriers facing women emerging from incarceration and addiction recovery. Time and again, I have watched doors close before these women ever have the opportunity to prove themselves. Limited resources, scarce opportunities, and social stigma create obstacles that can feel nearly impossible to overcome. The transition back into society is often met not with support, but with resistance.
Yet within that reality lies extraordinary purpose. What an incredible position it is to serve as a bridge, to stand between hardship and hope, connecting women to opportunity, community, and renewed belief in their future.
Today, when I stand before women, I do not speak from authority or distance. I speak from shared experiences, with vision, clarity, and a perspective that sees hope.
As you know, we’re big fans of Kourageous Vision . For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Our faith-based nonprofit inspires and supports women from all walks of life to overcome challenges and reclaim hope, purpose, and confidence. We serve women emerging from incarceration, addiction recovery, homelessness, or transitional living, as well as those navigating divorce, seeking meaningful friendships, or building strong community networks. Through mentorship, life skills training, and faith-centered guidance, we create a space where women can grow, connect, and envision a brighter future.
What distinguishes us is our commitment to cultivating authentic, lasting connections, the single most underutilized prescription in the world for transformation and hope. By fostering these relationships alongside a bold integration of faith within recovery and transitional spaces, we provide spiritual guidance, practical tools, and sustained support. Programs are led by women who have walked similar paths, allowing participants, whether in prison classrooms, treatment centers, or transitional housing, to engage from shared experience with vision, clarity, and a perspective that sees hope even in the most challenging circumstances.
We take pride in the transformative impact on the women we serve. Through mentorship, resources, and intentional relationship building, we help them rebuild confidence, strengthen faith, and embrace a future beyond their past. Our work cultivates resilience, renewal, and self-realization, equipping women to step boldly into the life they were created to live.
What does success mean to you?
Success is measured by the legacy we leave, cultivating courage, resilience, and faith that reach far beyond our programs into families, communities, and future generations. We continue to sow seeds, and today, two years later, we are seeing the fruit of that work. True success is witnessing lives transformed, knowing each woman we serve has the opportunity to thrive, and that we’ve built a lasting platform of hope and meaningful change.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://Www.kourageousvision.org
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kourageousvision?igsh=MWJoZmU3aDQxOWZzNA%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/share/1FwomMzG4T/?mibextid=wwXIfr
- Other: https://linktr.ee/kourageousvision
