For hours, Cynthia Montello would cower in that dark closet, hugging her knees.
No food. No water.
Only fear.
It was an all-too-often punishment from her stepmother that started before Montello was even a kindergartner.
In that box of darkness, there was one sliver of light coming in from under the bottom of the door. In that light, Montello could sometimes see the shadow of her older sister approaching.
As her older sister stood outside the closet door, she didn’t dare open it to let Montello out. Instead, she would hastily push cookies she had secretly taken under the door, then quickly slip away so as not to get caught.
That light provided comfort and nourishment to a little girl too scared to tell what was going on. Montello said her stepmother threatened that if she told, she would never see her father again.
But those difficult years shaped Montello’s life and ultimately strengthened her. They led her to devote much of her life to helping others overcome their problems.
Montello became an ordained minister who thrives on helping people find their way. She has counseled people in prisons and homeless shelters for the past 25 years.
She is heavily involved as a
volunteer with the City Rescue Mission, an organization particularly close to her heart, where she has watched women who had similar struggles blossom like she was able to.
She said she looks beyond a person’s flaws to see his or her potential.
“It strengthens me in ways that I can’t even describe,” said Montello, who owns the Montello Agency, an advertising and public relations firm. It’s a career she’s been involved in for more than 30 years.
Montello has also been a member of the Northeast Florida Builders Association and its Sales and Marketing Council for 25 years, and is one of the founders of the group’s Laurel Awards.
Wanting to find a way to spread inspiration to more people, Montello created Soul Topics — a mobile device app with 800 hand-picked Bible verses divvied up among 118 topics.
The topics range from addiction to family to grief. Each topic has several Bible verses that Montello hopes will provide regular inspiration to those who need it.
The app costs 99 cents and is available on Apple and Android platforms.
“I wanted the word of God to be the focus,” she said.
Ironically, while cleaning out her library, she found a letter from her grandfather tucked away in a book that showed a link to religion she never knew about.
The letter revealed that her great-grandfather, Sam P. Wright, had planted more churches in the state of Texas than anyone in history. He was also the founder and first president of Waco Female College, which became Baylor University.
“It made me feel so amazing to have the legacy of faith in my family,” she said. “I was honored to discover his love for God is in my DNA.
When Montello created the app, she wanted to keep the venture separate from her agency.
So she had to form another company, but needed a name.
The name needed to be special. It needed to provide hope. It needed to provide inspiration.
Only one name could do that: Cookies Under the Door.
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