Lindsey Wilson University graduate Jessica Ashby ’25 honored for her community service work to help others recover from addiction.
by Duane Bonifer
LOUISVILLE, KY. (07/27/2026) Jessica Ashby ’25 is making the most of her second chance, and in the process she is rewriting her life as a role model for others.
In less than a decade, the Louisville resident went from being a convicted felon whose drug addiction cost her the custody of her daughter, to a crusading community activist who has been honored for her efforts to shape public policy and rescue others struggling with addiction.
“I vowed a long time ago that I wanted to spend my life making other people feel less broken,” said Ashby. “At the end of the day, I’m living the life that God wanted me to live. Even through the bad. Sometimes we have to go through the bad to get to the really, really good.”
Going through the bad
Ashby went through the bad shortly after she gave birth in early 2014 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, to her daughter, Kylee. As part of her recovery, Ashby was given narcotics by her OB-GYN.
“When I got sent home from the hospital, I was prescribed narcotics,” said Ashby. “This was when doctors were prescribing pills like crazy, and I got mixed into all that. I was very uneducated about the dangers of taking narcotics. Had I known then what I now know, I definitely would not have taken narcotics. I thought that because they were prescribed by a doctor, it wasn’t anything that was going to be harmful. It progressed very quickly.”
In what Ashby said “seemed like no time,” her dependence on narcotics to relieve her pain “progressed into a full-blown substance abuse disorder” by the time her daughter was 3 years old. She also ended what she said was a “beautiful relationship” with her daughter’s father.
“I lost all of it,” she said.
As a first-time offender, Ashby was initially sentenced to 12 months of supervised diversion. But she failed a drug test — the only one she was given — in the final month of her recovery program with the Healing Place of Louisville. Ashby said she was prepared to go to prison when she met with her parole officer in January 2019. Instead, she was given a second chance.
“I walked in that day ready to go to prison because I knew that if I didn’t, I was going to die on the streets,” she said. “It turns out, they sent me home that day. I drove myself back to the Healing Place, and I’ve been sober ever since.”
Rebuilding her life
Ashby re-entered the Healing Place, in a six-month refocus program, then went on to get a job in Louisville and enter transitional living with her own apartment, thanks to support from her family.
She also became involved with community groups and programs dedicated to advocacy work and addiction recovery. She was active with the Louisville groups Young People in Recovery and Morgan’s Mission, spoke to advocacy groups and taught classes at a treatment center. In her classes, Ashby used her story of recovery to inspire others to do the same.
“I share openly,” she said. “A long time ago, I was taught that my program was anonymous, but I don’t have to be anonymous. I’m very vocal and share my story with everyone. I’m very vocal about everything I went through because somebody out there is going through the exact same thing — and it doesn’t have to be like that. We can still create lives that are so much more than what we ever hoped for.”
In October 2024, Ashby was a recipient of the prestigious Bell Award. Sponsored by the Spirit of Louisville Foundation, the award recognizes adults and high school students who have demonstrated the “Spirit of Louisville” through their volunteerism and inspiring others to engage in community service.
It was also through her advocacy and recovery work that Ashby met her fiance, Jacob Rice ’23. He encouraged Ashby to continue the college education she started at Jefferson Community and Technical College in Lindsey Wilson University’s online program, where he had earned his bachelor’s degree in human services and counseling.
“If you would have told me in 2015 or ’16 that I would be in college, I would not have believed it,” said Ashby.
Family tragedy
Less than a year until she was finished with her Lindsey Wilson bachelor’s degree in interdisciplinary studies, Ashby suffered another tragedy. In December 2024, her parents, William and Leslie Parson of Bowling Green, were killed in a car accident on the Martha Layne Collins Blue Grass Parkway, six miles east of Elizabethtown. The driver who caused the accident, and who also died, was under the influence of methamphetamine.
In memory of her parents, Ashby started the Cardinal Grace Foundation in September 2025. The foundation, which received its nonprofit status in December, takes its name from an aphorism Ashby’s parents often shared with her during the early stages of her recovery.
“They would always tell me, ‘Give yourself some grace,’ when things didn’t go how I wanted them to,” she said.
The cardinals were inspired by the folk proverb that the appearance of a cardinal signifies that an angel is near.
During its incipient stage, the Cardinal Grace Foundation has served more than 370 homeless people in the Louisville area by distributing sleeping bags, hygiene bags, and backpacks with winter clothes and snacks.
The public arena
Ashby said her parents’ accident “devastated” her and her family, but she was determined to press ahead toward her Lindsey Wilson degree. She decided to take her largest academic workload in the spring 2025 semester, in no small part because of the support she received from Lindsey Wilson Director of Online Student Success Ashley Miller.
“Ashley was just amazing,” said Ashby. “She really helped me after my parents died by helping me figure out whether I could take on that many classes while working.”
Also in 2025, Ashby expanded her activism to include working with the Kentucky General Assembly. During the 2025 session, she campaigned for the Family Preservation and Accountability Act, which proposed sentencing alternatives for primary caregivers convicted of non-violent offenses. Although the bill didn’t make it to the governor in 2025, Ashby returned to the General Assembly in 2026 to help get it to the desk of Gov. Andy Beshear, who signed it into law on June 25.
A call from the governor
Speaking of the governor, Beshear played a role in one of the most important days in Ashby’s life during her recovery.
Since 2023, Ashby had petitioned the governor for a pardon. Because she was a convicted felon, she could not volunteer at activities and events at Kylee’s school in Logan County, Kentucky. Ashby received more than 50 letters of support for a pardon, and she dutifully forwarded to the governor’s office every time she received an award or commendation for her nonprofit work.
Finally, on Dec. 19, when she was cleaning out her parents’ house for the final time, she received a phone call from Frankfort.
“I answered the phone and (Beshear) said, ‘Jessica, it’s Andy Beshear!’ I was like, ‘Hi.’ What else do you say?” she said. “He said, ‘I am signing your pardon as we speak.'”
Ashby’s response: “Thank you, thank you, thank you.”
“Everything that I’ve done over the last seven years tied into that phone call,” she said.
Less than two months later, Ashby appeared at a Feb. 11 press conference in Frankfort where the governor gave a proclamation recognizing Recovery Advocacy Day — the same day daughter Kylee turned 12.
“Recovery is proof that a life can be rewritten, and that no one should be sentenced forever for who they used to be. My life is proof of that,” Ashby said at the event.
Turning toward Beshear, she said: “Thank you, because you didn’t just change my life, you changed my little girl’s.”
Ashby is now working on a third college degree — a master’s degree in public administration from Eastern Kentucky University. She has ambitious plans for the Cardinal Grace Foundation. As the foundation develops a broader donor base, Ashby hopes it can assist people who are recovering from addiction and entering transitional living. She also plans to stay involved with the public policy arena, supporting legislation and initiatives that aim to address Kentucky’s battle with narcotics while also helping people recover from addiction and re-enter society.
“It’s almost like I’ve lived two lives,” she said. “I lived this one life that was really, really dark and gloomy, and then now this life that’s not.”
Lindsey Wilson University alumna Jessica Ashby ’25, pictured with her fiancé, Jacob Rice ’23, has been honored for her volunteerism and community service. She also campaigned for the passage of Kentucky’s Family Preservation and Accountability Act.
Lindsey Wilson University is a vibrant liberal arts university in Columbia, Kentucky. Founded in 1903 and affiliated with The United Methodist Church, the mission of Lindsey Wilson is to serve the educational needs of students by providing a living-learning environment within an atmosphere of active caring and Christian concern where every student, every day, learns and grows and feels like a real human being. Lindsey Wilson offers 30 undergraduate majors, five graduate programs and a doctoral program. The university’s 29 intercollegiate varsity athletic teams have won more than 120 team and individual national championships.
View Online: http://lindseywilson.meritpages.com/news/Helping-Others-Feel-Less-Broken/60824
(Duane Bonifer – Lindsey Wilson University)