Client Story: Tina stays strong after a loss
July 19, 2010
Energy floods Tina’s hands as she remembers the day she and her husband learned they were about to receive a home through Habitat for Humanity. “I was jumping for joy because I wouldn’t have thought that we would get a house [since we] stayed in the projects.” The year was 1996, and Habitat had offered 100 families 100 new homes as a celebration of Atlanta’s Olympics Centennial celebration. Tina, her husband, and her two children moved into the home, ready to start their new lives.
Tina delightfully found her new home was only a few blocks away from an after-school program served by the Atlanta Community Food Bank. The program offers kids a place to catch up on school work, participate in extracurricular activities and enjoy a hot meal – all free of charge to the working parents of the rehabilitated neighborhood the facility resides in. Once the family had settled themselves, Tina immediately enrolled her children in program’s services.
The nurturing space has been pivotal for Tina, who, since moving, has had two more children. Tina struggled to keep her four children strong as their father passed away from complications with diabetes. The after-school program kept Tina busy as a volunteer and her kids focused on their school work during those sad times.
Now with one son in college, Tina still happily volunteers at the whitewashed wood-sided building only caddy corner to her home. As she pursues her own medical assistance studies, she is grateful for the organization that established strong academic paths for all four of her children.
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