Meet the Founder

LaVelle Payne
Founder, Haven of Love & Restoration

LaVelle Denise Payne is a woman of faith, a mother, minister, mentor, Peer Support Supervisor, and the founder of Haven of Love & Restoration (HOLR), a Christian nonprofit with a heart to help women coming out of addiction find healing, restoration, purpose, and a new way of life.

LaVelle's passion for helping women in addiction and recovery is deeply personal. She spent nearly 20 years in active addiction. During that time, she knew very little about recovery programs and, in many ways, no one ever sat her down and said, “Hey, I think you need help.” She was what many people would call a functioning addict—she continued to work and maintain responsibilities, so from the outside, it appeared that everything was okay.

After working in the restaurant industry for 36 years, LaVelle witnessed firsthand how substance use could become normalized in certain environments. As long as you showed up for work and performed your job, your struggles could remain hidden. Behind the appearance of functioning, however, LaVelle experienced abusive relationships, broken friendships, manipulation, pain, guilt, and shame.

Everything changed through an encounter with God.

LaVelle describes her encounter with the Lord as the turning point that saved her life. She didn't have all the answers. She simply encountered the love and power of God, and her life began to change. Through her journey, she came to understand that freedom was possible and that restoration was not only something she could experience, but something she could help others discover.

In early 2019, while working in the healthcare industry, LaVelle began seeing an alarming increase in overdoses involving heroin and fentanyl. One particular case involving a baby deeply affected her. She remembers crying out to God, saying, “Lord, please do something.”

She began seeing things she had never witnessed within her own circle of partying friends—people unconscious in vehicles in fast-food parking lots, increasing hospital admissions, and families being devastated by addiction. The crisis became personal to her heart, particularly as she watched the impact it was having on Wayne County. The COVID-19 pandemic further intensified her concern as she witnessed the devastation associated with substance use and overdose.

Out of that burden, a vision was born.

In October 2019, Haven of Love & Restoration became an official vision and ministry, created to help women who are struggling with addiction and those who are beginning their journey of recovery.

LaVelle believes that women need more than simply a place to sleep or a program to complete. They need a safe place to heal, learn, grow, rebuild, and discover who they are beyond addiction. They need someone who understands that addiction does not define their identity or their future.

Her ultimate vision is to establish a four-bedroom faith-based residential home in Wayne County, providing women with a structured two-year opportunity for recovery and restoration. The home will provide mentorship, biblical discipleship, personal and professional development, life-skills support, healthy relationships, and opportunities to reconnect with family and community.

At the heart of the vision is Jesus Christ.

LaVelle wants women to be introduced to the love of Jesus, experience freedom from destructive patterns and strongholds, discover their identity and purpose, restore their lives, reconcile relationships, and develop the tools necessary to become productive and healthy members of society.

But her vision goes even further.

She wants women who have been restored to become women who help restore others.

LaVelle understands what it feels like to be overlooked, misunderstood, and trapped behind the appearance that everything is okay. Because she has walked through addiction herself, she knows that recovery is not simply about stopping a substance. It is about becoming whole—body, soul, and spirit.

Her testimony is a reminder that a person's worst season does not have to become their final chapter.

“I was once the woman who needed someone to say, ‘I think you need help.’ Today, I want to be that person for someone else.”

Through Haven of Love & Restoration, LaVelle is committed to helping women move from addiction to recovery, from shame to identity, from brokenness to healing, and from surviving to living with purpose.

Her prayer is that HOLR will become a place where women encounter the love of Jesus, receive the support they need, rebuild their lives, and ultimately become a source of hope and restoration to their families and communities.