Two single moms and their children thrive

I work with a family – a single mom with three kids. She moved to be able to find more affordable housing. After she moved, her life went downhill fast. They moved to a house that had many problems. She lost her job and was driving to Front Royal from Page County every day, just to bring her child to school. But she had a great family support system in place that would not allow her to stop or even get put back to a place where she could feel sorry for herself!

She has since moved back to Front Royal to a little “it will do” apartment. She has been hired on at the Post Office and continues to take tests that, upon passing, increase her hourly wage! She now wants to get all her finances in order to buy a home! Her little girl, through this whole journey, remained just as happy and full of life as ever!

Another mother, again said to be single, was impossible to locate at the beginning of the year and I had just about written her off until I pulled in one day and she was standing at the office door. She came in and started to tell me her thoughts about what she would like to do. I invited her back to go online with me and look at the local community college schedule and see what she would need to do to enroll. She came back twice. I called to check on her and she was very excited ­– she had gone for placement testing and was looking forward to starting a class soon. She was unable to start that class because of needing to work more hours, but I saw her soon after at the Junior High School Academic Awards ceremony where my son received an award. I looked beside me and recognized one of her smaller children and turned around just as the announcer said the name of her oldest! When we were leaving, I spoke with her and she said “You had something to do with that. My boy did a complete turn around this year because you reminded me about the importance of education and he saw how bad I wanted it and got excited about his own. Thank You.” I was speechless!

Submitted by Family Service Worker: Ani Spicer
County: Warren