Brave Penny Leadership Team
Sharon Fox is the Executive Director and co-founder with Heather Rodriguez of Brave Penny, a 501(c) 3 non-profit organization. With the support of a Board of Directors and other interested groups, the goal of the organization is to broaden, through publications, ministry and training, knowledge of the grief journey to those who grieve.
Sharon is a Certified Grief Facilitator through the American Academy of Bereavement and has over 20 years of experience in ministry to those who grieve from losses which would include death, diminished health, adoption, abortion, infertility, divorce, infant death, SIDS, pet death, death of adult child, job loss or any other type of grief event.
Reframing Adoption, her first book is specifically written for birthmothers and birth families that have chosen to gift a child through adoption to another family. A Precious Loss was written for families who have experienced miscarriage, SIDS and infant death. Both books are published in English and Spanish. All four of those books are on Amazon and available in electronic formats. Her third book, The Stone Carver’s Son is a children’s Christmas book about a shepherd who taught others about the prophecy of the birth of Jesus. That book is available through the Brave Penny website.
Sharon and her husband, Jim, retired in 2014 from ownership of their family-owned business in Frisco, TX.
Heather Rodriguez is co-founder of Brave Penny and a former Board member, now retired.
Birthmother is a very sacred and personal title. Those very words change you for a lifetime. Along with changing you, they weave together the fabric of another family – a family that has nothing to do with you or your child biologically but will forever bond you all together.
When I became a birthmother for the first time, it absolutely crushed my world. It changed me, but not for the better. When God asked me to do it a second time he promised he would redeem my story. He has held true to his word above and beyond what I could ever have imagined. Today the title birthmother is priceless to me.
Brave Penny is the promise that God made to me years ago, but only now has it taken on a life of its own through the works of this ministry.
God has redeemed my story and I know He will redeem yours too. I am now a mother, a wife and a leader in grief ministry.
God’s word heals beyond and above anything else this world has to offer. I hope and pray all who seek lifetime healing will be Brave enough to do the work it take to find abundant life after a grief experience.
Laura Palagyi, President of Brave Penny Board of Directors, has worked as a Financial Analyst and volunteered in a variety of church, school and nonprofit settings while raising her family. Laura served for 15 years as the Treasurer of Threads of Hope, a nonprofit working with women artisans in Peru. She was commissioned as a Colson Fellow (a program of the Colson Center for Christian Worldview) in 2021, and now serves on the leadership team for her church’s Colson Fellows Church Affiliate program. Laura leads a women’s Bible study small group at her church and serves as a Patient Advocate at Real Options prolife ministry. She has a passion for helping people grow in faith and appreciates that Brave Penny’s grief recovery programs and resources are biblically based.
Laura has been married to Steve for 36 years. They have two wonderful daughters, a terrific son-in-law, and three beautiful grandchildren.
HB Bartz, Treasurer of Brave Penny Board of Directors, is retired after a forty-one year career in the information technology industry. He is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin and served as an officer in the US Army for three and a half years. His work experience included customer and financial management, marketing and sales, business applications development, and people management. He and his family spent eleven years overseas managing customer accounts in Europe and Asia. HB has served his various church families in many roles, as Sunday school teacher, small group leader, lay ministry and lay church leadership. He and his wife, MaryAnn and son live in the Dallas area.
Laura Lee Scherer, Secretary of Brave Penny Board of Directors, has spent the majority of her career in sales, marketing and nutrition within the food business, working with Nestle, Schwan’s, Kellogg’s and DairyMAX, with specialties in developing National Account business and, more recently, Nutrition Education. Laura has served her church in many different roles over the years, to include serving on search committees, being a member of various church board committees, as a Youth Group volunteer, serving as a Greeter, and currently as a long time Small Group Leader. She has served as a Collin County Master Wellness Volunteer since 2008 and volunteers with several non-profits. She has been a member of the Brave Penny board since 2017. Laura and her husband, Scott, live in Allen, TX.
Vicky Warren, member of Brave Penny Board of Directors, is a recent addition to the Brave Penny Board of Directors. She has been a long-time friend of founder Sharon Fox and has been personally touched by the ministry of Brave Penny.
Vicky graduated from UCLA with a degree in psychology. She worked for over 40 years in administrative and editorial capacities for both for-profit and not-for-profit organizations. For 10 years she was practice manager for her husband Paul who was a behavioral pediatrician in the Dallas area. After Paul’s sudden death in 2006, she worked as Director of Operations and Development at St. Timothy Christian Academy, a school for children with learning differences founded by Paul and the leadership of Christ Church Plano. He died just 2-1/2 months after the school opened. In this capacity, she was reminded each and every day of the truth of Paul’s steadfast belief that relationships come first! One of the things she loves about Brave Penny is the mission to journey alongside those who are grieving—whatever the source of their grief. She was personally ministered to by the Shadowlands ministry after Paul’s death, which came just 11 days after the death of her father, and 16 months before the death of her mother. She looks forward to spreading the word about this wonderful ministry.
Vicky has one son Matthew. He and his wife Kristin live in the Boston area along with their three children (Everly, Cameron, and Lillian)—the loves of her life!
Ed Herider moved from Missouri to Texas at an early age. He graduated from Concordia Lutheran High School in 1955. After two years at The University of Texas at Austin, majoring in drama and theater arts, he transferred to Texas A&M, from which school he graduated in 1960 with a degree in English.
He returned home to work in the family agricultural business, a job for which he was clearly unsuited. Now, being trapped behind a desk, and faced with daily frustration and unhappiness.
Seeking an escape, he enrolled in the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, which he attended for three years. However, it proved to beprimarily an intellectual endeavor. It was actually not until 1976, while on a trip to Israel, that Ed finally found freedom he sought when he accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior.
After moving to Dallas in 1979, he enrolled in Christ for the Nations Institute, from which he graduated in 1981.
In the course of his life, and to the glory of God, Ed has been a vocalist, anartist, a writer, an editor, an actor, a voiceover artist, a playwright, a director and a record producer. Although there have been many accomplishments, there have also been significant losses throughout his life. In 1983, he lost his mother to suicide. In 2015, he tragically lost both his home and many possessions because of anincorrect medical diagnosis. It was this devastating loss that resulted in his being introduced to the healing ministry of Shadowlands.
Ed is very grateful for all the Lord’s blessings and for what the Lord has brought him through. He looks forward to standing beside Brave Penny as it reaches out in ministry to those who, like himself, have experienced loss and grief in their lives and now seek the Lord’s healing touch.