BRADENTON -- By any measure, the safety net for the homeless, the hungry, the destitute and the hopeless is strained to the breaking point in Manatee County. Too many times, it may even be missing altogether because the need is so overwhelming.

Thursday, three young women sat on a sofa at Lighthouse Treasures Store, bright-eyed, alert, articulate and smiling.

They were charming and brave, too.

You wouldn’t know it, but each of them is recovering from alcohol or drug abuse.

Not so long ago, they were on the verge of plunging right past society’s safety net and into an abyss from which they might never recover.

And yet, looking at them on that sofa, they seemed so normal, just like anyone’s favorite daughter.

Maybe that’s just the point.

It can happen to anyone.

Hope Kerkof, founder of Light Under the Bridge Homeless Ministry with her husband, Kevin Kerkof, had to fight to hold back the tears as the young women shared their stories.

Now all three are among the residents of Lighthouse, a faith-based transitional recovery home for women in Manatee County.

Lisa Soward, 39, admits she was “so broken” by her battles with alcohol.

But by accepting a healing strategy of Light Under the Bridge Homeless Ministry, Soward said she is regaining control of her life.

“I am strengthening my relationship with the Lord,” Soward said.

Bailey Bowen, 22, said she was a drug abuser, and had reached the point where she didn’t want to live anymore.

Life in the recovery home has turned her around.

“I never laughed so hard or smiled so much. I wake up happy. The other ladies in the house are so supportive,” Bowen said.

Katie Wallis, 28, said she had also been in a downward spiral with drug abuse.

Lighthouse opened at just the right time to pull her back from the brink, Wallis said.

“God came in and completely broke me down. There is such freedom in surrender to God. Since then my life has been straight up,” Wallis said.

“It’s hard to think about the person I used to be.”

Kerkof’s emotion at hearing those stories touched something in her soul, and gave her validation that the ministry’s efforts were helping save the down-and-out.

Light Under the Bridge opened a Christian faith-based transitional recovery home for women in Bradenton in July 2010. Last month, they opened Lighthouse Treasures at 4540 14th St. W.

Proceeds from the sales of items at the thrift store help pay for the ministry and the recovery home.

Light Under the Bridge, patterned on a parent project in Seattle, takes its name from faith workers who look under bridges for homeless people to help.

Hope Kerkof is a graduate of Bradenton Christian School and the University of Central Florida. She once imagined a career for herself in business, but in her time in Seattle, she became committed to the Light Under the Bridge outreach. She met Kevin, a former Farm Bureau agent, in Orlando. They are now both ministers.