“I’d sit there long enough until I just couldn’t stand it, and I’d have to go get me a hit, but I would sit there, and I wanted to hear something different.

“I was tired of living like that.”

Bonhart first went to SafeHouse Outreach, a homeless shelter in Atlanta where he met Gregg Kennard, NSPIRE founder and executive director. Kennard was interviewing the homeless to join his program, which was only a few months old at the time. He had no trouble convincing Bonhart to participate.

“Once I listened to what Gregg had to say — how they would move me to a nice suburban area, I’d be living in a house and then move to an apartment, it was just like an ‘ah ha’ moment.”

Bonhart spent the next seven and a half months in the program and was part of its first graduating class. Now a truck driver for the clothing company that partners with NSPIRE, the 47-year-old is starting to get his life back together. And he said he has Rhein, one of his favorite people, to thank for that.

“Wendy is my biggest cheerleader,” he said. “She is probably the reason I have my own apartment, a job and I’ve got money in the bank.”

Bonhart said Rhein was present when he signed the lease on his apartment, and she has helped him work through his self-esteem issues.

“I just listened to Wendy … telling me ‘yeah, you are worth it. You do deserve a good life,’ ” he said.

In August, he was accepted to Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, where he is working toward a Ph.D. in economics.

Bonhart said he would not be where he is today without NSPIRE — or without Rhein.

“When Wilkes first came into NSPIRE,” Rhein said, “I think he had about a week of clean time after decades of crack use.

“He was clearly smart and talented and shrewd and needed the opportunity to take some chances on himself and regain a sense of purpose that he had lost in his early twenties.”

Rhein admits they clashed a lot in the beginning as Bonhart tested the limits of the program. But she said “he stuck with it, humbled himself and has unveiled this incredibly driven, committed and thoughtful person.”

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Rhein’s sister, Robin Hurwitz — a 1988 University graduate — said that although their parents had always taught them to do good deeds, it wasn’t until college that her sister found her passion for helping those less fortunate.

“Truthfully, I think when she got to Michigan, that is where a lot of this started,” Hurwitz said.

The two girls lived together during Hurwitz’s junior year at the University. Hurwitz recounted that her sister would wake up early on the weekends to work against people trying to block women from entering Planned Parenthood.

“She would come home and be so bruised from blocking people who were so much bigger, especially adult men who were trying to block these women from getting the education they wanted,” Hurwitz said. “But it was so important for her.”

Hurwitz added that the protests “started opening her (sister’s) eyes to other things” and may have led her to where she is today.

Hurwitz said she could never do the kind of work her sister does.

“I think emotionally it would be way too hard for me,” she said. “Especially having kids of my own, I think I would just fall apart, but she has an inner strength that not many other people have.”

NSPIRE would not run as smoothly or change so many lives if it were not for Rhein, Kennard said.

“She has a great big heart and passion to help people to make a difference,” he said.

Rhein said all the various experiences she has had working with disadvantaged populations during the last 18 years have culminated in her current job and said she is driven by knowing her small deeds can change a person’s fate.

“The ability to touch people’s lives, to help them get from one place to another, it’s kind of like watching a year of a miracle happen in somebody’s life,” she said.