A woman came to us who is the mom of a special needs child and was trying to go to nursing school. She had a van used to transport her daughter that would not pass inspection without new tires. She had no idea how she would get her child to daycare and herself to school. The owner of a local tire store stepped up and provided her with tires for her van. Another member pitched in to help with her nursing schoolbooks. She is now almost finished with nursing school and remains grateful. She has joined Walking the Talk as part of our network. We probably will not have a request for tires again, at least for some time, so this individual made his contribution but will not be burned out because there are many within the network to pitch in.
A young woman came to our toy drive in 2021. Thanks to the astute observations of one of our members, her dire need was noticed. She had just left a violent domestic situation with a child with special needs. She had no food, no clothing and was trying to move in with a friend. It turns out that the situation was secondary to the violation of a protection from abuse order. Using multiple people in our network, we had her moved to a domestic violence shelter, provided both physical and education intervention to her child, was able to get her enrolled into CCAC, and provided her with food and clothing. Many months later, one of our board members received a note from her. She was in her own apartment, remained in school, her child was doing well, and she was looking forward to a time when she could give back. This was all made possible by a varied group of people with different knowledge, different resources and different networks coming together to care for another. This is what we are about.