Bed rest before her baby's birth and unpaid maternity leave afterward kept Elizabeth Anderes from being able to pay her rent.
She and her family struggled as bills mounted and she couldn't work as a cashier. She was put on bed rest a month before the baby's due date.
On Aug. 30, her son, Rickey, was born — healthy.
“It really hurt us when I was on maternity leave,” she said. “There was little money.”
By September, she had fallen behind a month on the rent for the three-bedroom apartment she shares with her husband and her 18-year-old son from a previous marriage.
Anderes needed $600 and found help from Goodfellows, which can provide one-time emergency payments in cases where there may be no other options.
Such assistance, as in Anderes' case, can help keep a family in a home. Goodfellows this year is helping many families like her with one-time emergency payments for rent, utilities and other needs. Goodfellows also is providing families with a holiday meal.
The campaign under way now will serve needy families in 2010.
The 40-year-old Anderes is now back at work as a cashier on the night shift in a tobacco store. Her husband works in construction, but steady employment is tough to find and their financial struggles continue.
Anderes acknowledges poor choices, runs-ins with the law and drug addictions in the past.
That life is behind them, she said, and she strives daily to make things better. “We're trying to get back on our feet,” she said.
Contact the writer:
444-3198, chip.olsen@owh.com
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