A Florida grandma found herself parenting her grandson. Now she helps others do the same.

Mary Ann Sterling is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women who have made a significant impact in their communities and across the country. The program launched in 2022 as a continuation of Women of the Century, which commemorated the 100th anniversary of women gaining the right to vote. Meet this year’s honorees at womenoftheyear.usatoday.com.

At 87, Mary Ann Sterling radiates vitality.

She talks fast, in a quiet, but commanding voice with just a touch of Southern drawl. She's eager to tell anyone who will listen about the grandchildren. Not just her own — though she'll happily throw in a story about them, too — but the hundreds of children in Brevard County, Florida, being raised by their grandparents.

Grandparents are responsible for raising more than 2.6 million U.S. children, according AARP statistics. In Brevard, a Central Florida county with a population of just more than 600,000, 1 in 47 children are being raised by their grandparents, Sterling said.

That's where Grandparents Raising Grandchildren of Brevard County comes in.

Sterling, then 55, took custody of her 6-year-old grandson, Matthew Armstrong, in 1990, after her daughter, Lynda Dawn Sterling, was killed in a car accident. Reentering the parent game brought new struggles, and Sterling quickly realized she wasn't alone. She started the Rockledge-based nonprofit in 1995.

These grandparents (and great-grandparents) range in age from their mid-30s to their 80s, with children from infants to late teens. Many of the children's parents struggle with drug and alcohol addiction or mental illness. Others are incarcerated, homeless or have died.

GRG offers support groups, legal help, parenting classes and tutoring. The organization also accepts donations to provide Thanksgiving and Christmas meals, toys and gifts and school supplies. Children receive gift cards for making the honor roll or for getting good grades. GRG helped one grandmother cover the costs of her granddaughter becoming a varsity cheerleader.

Matthew, now 39, is a successful attorney in Orlando. Though her second round of child-raising has ended, Sterling continues fighting for grandparents and the children they raise.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What paved the way for you to start Grandparents Raising Grandchildren?

I lost my daughter, and I got my 6-year-old grandson to raise.

I noticed out at the ballpark that a lot of people would tell me that they were raising their grandchildren. We started with six members. Now we have 1,600. We have the largest support group in the state of Florida (for grandparents). The police refer people to us. Department of Children and Families will refer people to us. Doctors, the schools.

I can remember when I first started, I would go to a support group meeting, and nobody would be there but me. I just didn't give up.

What is your proudest moment with Grandparents Raising Grandchildren?

I think my proudest moment would be that I can help other grandparents who are in the same situation that I am, whether it's from the death of a child or drugs and alcohol. We have something in common, and I understand their concerns.

What would you say was your lowest moment?

Well, the hardest thing is I can't help everybody.

But we can help a lot of people by giving them information and resources.

What is your guiding principle?

Never give up. That's what we never do. Even if we can't help you, we can listen to you.

How do you overcome adversity?

Right at the very beginning, I had to not think constantly about the loss of my daughter. But then, I just said, " You have to keep on keeping on." That's the most important thing that you can do when you pick up your baby from the hospital because it was born on drugs. You have to realize you have to keep on keeping on.

What are some of the challenges grandparents face when taking in their grandchildren?

Not only do we have to deal with our situation at 60 and 70, these children... We have a 5-year-old right now who was in here the other day crying, "You understand, I'm the reason my mother has a problem, because she had me." That's the 5-year-old that's having to deal with that.

You may have a mate who says, "I don't want to do this."

I have a grandmother right now having to live in her car. Fortunately we can give her information on where she can go to get help.

I had a grandmother call me this morning. Her grandson is threatening suicide because DCF has insisted he live with his mother, and he knows his mother is on drugs and he doesn't want to be there.

If I sat here all day long, I could write a book on the situations that our grandparents face.

What was it like reentering the world of parenting?

Let me tell you, when my grandson came home from Cocoa Beach Jr./Sr. High, and said to me, "Grandma, you know, I don't know one girl in my class who's a virgin," I said, "What did you say?" I had to be brought into this generation. And that's hard for a person my age.

Things are a lot different now. You take away the Xboxes instead of putting them in a corner.

That's why we have parenting classes.

Why might a grandparent need legal help when taking in a grandchild?

There are the different kinds of custody. You have power of attorney, guardianship, custody and adoption.

When we get our children, a lot of times we can't even get them in school, or we can't get them medical treatment. We have a baby right now who needs open-heart surgery, and we can't find a doctor who will do it because we don't have custody.

It isn't that you want to keep the children away from their parents, you just want to keep the children safe.

How can people help?

Donate. Because we need help with legal fees. In case you don't know it, in order to get a child into your custody when the mother and father are both on drugs, don't have a job, don't have a car, it costs between $5,000 and $10,000 to adopt, and it may cost that much to get custody or guardianship. And most grandparents don't have that.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I think the advice I would give, is I wouldn't be so critical of myself. I had a lot going for me when I was younger ... and I always thought I should have been better than I was.

Even though I finished my college degree when I was 40, I kept on. I just wouldn't give up, but it took me a while to say it's OK if you take that long to do what you want to do.

You know what I have on my refrigerator door? "You're never too old to have dreams and to know that they can come true." And I want to be sure, that no matter how old I get, I still have something to offer. I hope I do. And I'm going to keep on trying.

I played tennis until I was 70, mowed the lawn until I was 70. I think being active helps you a lot.

What would you say is the most important thing Grandparents Raising Grandchildren offers the community?

It's being willing to listen. That's the thing. They don't have anybody that listens to them. And we hope we gave them a place that they can say, "I'm so scared, and I don't know what to do."

And I think that's our biggest accomplishment.

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This article originally appeared on Florida Today: USA TODAY honors Florida Grandparents Raising Grandchildren founder