Amy Frey began taking strong painkillers for kidney stones when she was in high school.

When they stopped working, someone introduced her to heroin.

"I got hooked on it really bad. Rehab didn't work. For years I was in and out of prison, on the streets no more than three or four months a year."

But today Frey, 31, is drug-free, gainfully employed and no longer homeless.

And next Saturday, she will launch her ministry for the homeless and addicted.

"A Day of Hope" will feature a worship service at 10:45 a.m., followed by a picnic at 1 p.m. in Farnum Park, behind Water Street Mission, 210 S. Prince St.

The Rev. Armando Iraheta, pastor of Lancaster's Fuenta de Amore United Methodist Church, will preach in Spanish and English, and G.O.D. Sent, led by Christian hip-hop artist Jehovanny Ramos, will perform.

Frey, who has been clean for a little over a year, is a member of First United Methodist Church, Duke and Walnut streets, which is supporting the project.

She said she picked Farnum Park because it was her favorite place to get high. She expects about 250 people to attend.

Frey named her ministry for a day she holds dear to her heart, a day when an evangelist approached her on the street and told her she was going to do great things in her life for the Lord.

"She said with everything I'd been through, my testimony was going to help others. I didn't want to hear it because I was out there getting high."

But it stuck with her.

At the time, Frey had left her husband, Mark. She had a son with another man, but he was given up for adoption.

Frey was abandoned by her mother, who had mental problems, when she was six months old.

She was raised by her father and his current wife, who adopted her, Dan and Vera Pongonis, owners of Sweets for Sweeties Candies and Ice Cream in Paradise.

"I came from a good home," said Frey, who attended Conestoga Valley High School.

A teenage mom, Frey has an older son, Danny, 13, whom her parents are raising.

Shortly after the encounter with the street evangelist, Frey was back in prison, this time in Philadelphia.

Even though they were estranged, her husband visited her.

"He said he was praying for me, that everything is going to get better. He believed in me.

"I needed to hear that because everyone else had given up on me. My parents had given up on me. Everybody had turned their back on me."

Why did her husband still have faith in her?

"I just had hope she would be better," he said. "That someday she would want to change and do the right things."

And somehow that clicked with Frey.

She said she "got in touch with the Lord" through First UMC's prison ministry, run by member Eleanor Forrest.

"I started to believe he loved me," she said. "When I got out (of prison), I restored my marriage. Then the Lord gave us an apartment -- we had been in a hotel. When I was out three days, I got a job."

She is a cashier and hostess at Fuddruckers, which also is supporting "A Day of Hope."

And she regularly attends the contemporary worship service at First UMC, led by the Rev. Kerry Leeper, associate pastor of the church.

She took her idea for "A Day of Hope" to Leeper, who offered the church's support for the project with funds and volunteers.

"We encourage our members to have their own ministries, to get involved where they can," Leeper said.

"She took off running with it. She really has a heart for it. We gave her some guidance, but she made most of the connections. She's been great."

To promote the event, Frey has spoken in services at Water Street Mission, First UMC and Ross Street UMC.

"As long as one person's life is touched by the day, it will be worth it," she said.