Staff

Cookie Gray

Cookie was born on July 19, 1937 on a farm near Metter, Georgia. At the age of eighteen months she contracted polio that resulted in severe paralysis. She was mainstreamed in public school through high school using braces, crutches, and a wheelchair.

Cookie received a B.S. Degree in Elementary Education at the University of Tampa where she met her late husband. He also used a wheelchair due to having polio at twelve years of age. She taught 1st grade for six years when she became pregnant and was blessed with a precious little boy.

One year later, after her son Kenneth was born, she started a weekday Kindergarten Program at her church, First United Methodist of Brandon. She was on staff for seven years as Administrator / Teacher of the school and several of those years she was also Director of Christian Education for the entire church.

In May of 1977 after seventeen years of marriage, her husband became extremely ill and died in October of 1977. At that point she became a single mother with an eleven year old son. In time, Cookie began volunteering on a Helpline in Tampa where she was trained to counsel people in crisis. She went for further Biblical Counseling Training and worked as a face-to-face counselor for several years. In 1986 she was approached by a group in her church that had researched the need in our community for a Center that ministered to teens and young women experiencing unplanned pregnancies. Cookie was asked to become the Director of the Brandon Crisis Pregnancy Center in June of 1987. To date, with over 55,000 client contacts, she is celebrating her twenty-third year of service in the ministry.

Cookie states, “I have been so blessed to be able to serve others in spite of my disability. I came to the conclusion very early in my life that God allowed my disability to become a platform from which to serve Him and bring honor and glory to His name.”