All Blessings Flow (ABF), a faith-based nonprofit in Charlottesville, partners with local churches and volunteers to provide medical supplies that include dressing aids, bathing accessories, wheelchairs, exercise equipment, and ramps. Every Thursday, a mobile trailer full of free medical supplies is available for Louisa residents from 10:00 – 12:00 at the Louisa campus of The Point Church.

Louisa resident and ABF board member Dominique McLaughlin started using their services in 2008 when she first started providing support to her mother as a caregiver. She needed a rollator, a wheeled walker to help support mobility, so she picked one up from ABF Executive Director Annie Dodd, back when the whole operation functioned out of her basement.

“The need has grown so much that what started as a basement operation has turned into a full warehouse that’s over 7,500 square feet of space where we house our equipment and people come to pick up and drop off at the main site,” McLaughlin said.

She was a former caregiver to both her mother and grandmother, which she said was the most challenging yet rewarding experience of her life. At one point, her grandmother lived with her and needed total care, while insurance wouldn’t pay for a necessary hospital bed.

“This fully electrical hospital bed ABF was able to provide me was a game changer,” McLaughlin said. “I never thought a manual vs. electric would be such a huge difference between the two, but it absolutely was. When I was done with it, I donated it back to ABF for someone else to use to pay it forward.”

While ABF serves the counties of Buckingham, Fluvanna, Nelson, Orange, and Louisa, McLaughlin noted that Louisa residents continue to be the largest recipient of ABF services.

In 2025, ABF continued to expand its rural outreach program, serving over 900 clients in Louisa County living with disabilities or chronic health conditions. By providing more than 2,800 items of critical medical equipment and supplies, co-Founder, treasurer & CFO Douglas Dodd stated they bridged a vital gap in healthcare access for Louisa residents ranging from infants to centenarians.

Dodd shared that 93% of Louisa clients reported positive health outcomes and improved well-being based on data from follow-up client interviews and that Louisa clients saved over $269,000 in direct healthcare costs, freeing up funds for food, rent, and other essentials. The equipment and services provided by ABF helped Louisa reduce falls by 88%, ER visits by 91%, and hospital readmission are 40% lower than the state average — these prevented incidents, based on National Institutes of Health (NIH) benchmarks, Dodd said saved Louisa families and the community an additional $1.6 million in avoided healthcare costs.

McLaughlin joined ABF as a board member in 2025. Last year, there was a period where the lease on ABF’s current warehouse was going to end and they were unsure if they were going to remain in the Charlottesville area. McLaughlin raised the idea of a pickleball tournament to raise funds.

“[Other board members] didn’t have a lot of hope we could do this successfully, but we did,” McLaughlin said. “We raised quite a bit of money through local sponsorships.”

In a chance encounter with retired Louisa County High School (LCHS) teacher Randy Holladay at Obrigado Restaurant several years ago, he mentioned his current hobby of pickleball.

“ What is pickleball?” McLaughlin remembers asking him. “He told me what it was and I got the whole story of how pickleball was created.”

Holladay put McLaughlin in touch with Annette Hayes, Louisa’s Pickleball Ambassador, and they started texting back and forth, eventually meeting Hayes out on the court at Trevilians Elementary School to learn how to play.

But she started pickleball simply as a chance to decompress and take a break from caregiving.

“My passion just grew and grew and I started looking for other opportunities to connect with people through pickleball,” McLaughlin said. “She introduced me to the sport and it has provided so much happiness in my life. Through Annette, I’ve been able to stick with pickleball and turn my passion into purpose.”

Hayes passed away in February of 2024.

“She was a little spitfire,” McLaughlin said. “I miss her dearly.”

This upcoming Saturday, ABF will host their second annual “Blessings in Motion” pickleball fundraiser. The event will start at 9:00 a.m. and will be held at The Greencroft Club located at 575 Rodes Dr. in Charlottesville. The tournament will be directed by Jim Kucera, the club’s Director of Racquet Sports, who brings over 20 years of experience. The event welcomes spectators and there will be opportunities to participate in raffles, visit vendor tables, and meet other pickleball enthusiasts. There will be both a social and competitive league with awards for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.

McLaughlin reiterated that there is still a goal to set up a satellite office in Louisa for ABF. To accomplish that, they are looking for additional volunteers in Louisa to make it a reality.

“Pickleball has been a way for me to manage prolonged grief. After my grandmother passed away, I went right into caring for my mom…but pickleball helped me redefine purpose by giving back to ABF, engaging with a sport I love, meeting all of these great people…I look forward to going and playing pickleball and connecting to other people with the hope they too can get as much pleasure and joy and happiness from the sport as has been given to me,” McLaughlin said. “If it wasn’t for Randy Holladay at Obrigado, who connected me to Annette Hayes who was the spiciest senior woman I had ever met at Trevilians Elementary School, I would not be as content and happy as I am today in my life without those folks who introduced me to pickleball.”