Give a Single Parent a Lifeline to Success

You might not be able to watch your child play fall sports or sit outside in the frigid cold with your friends while watching your favorite football team score the final-second touchdown this year. You might not be gathering together for that awesome pre-game laughter and delicious food at the tailgate party. Even that post-Thanksgiving game of flag football in your backyard with your family might not happen this year. That’s right, COVID-19 took away your ability to be a coach, a cheerleader, a Sunday afternoon quarterback. However, it did not take away your ability to be a part of a team: Team H.O.P.E. 

Hi! My name is Latiffa. I am currently a H.O.P.E. participant, and I have a lot to be thankful for because of you. Thank you, for donating this year to H.O.P.E. so that they could provide me with the counseling I needed when I had lost hope and was depressed. Thank you for the mentorship I received, improving upon my professional skills and boosting my network. When you like H.O.P.E.’s social media posts or read their newsletters, guess what? It helps me to know that I am not alone. In 2019, H.O.P.E. came to me in the form of a lifeline. It had been four years since I moved from New York City to Atlanta to create a better life for myself and my daughter. Not only am I the epicenter of my family, but I am my daughter’s world. Her only parent. I began working three jobs and going to school. The hard work and stress seemed like the right thing…until it wasn’t. Bills piled up and I had to make the incredibly hard decision to quit school in lieu of better pay so that I could help my mother and brother, both of whom had been diagnosed with cancer years prior. Pretty unbelievable, right? 

To make matters worse, my grandmother began ailing and my uncle was struggling in New York. I am my family’s caretaker: the reliable one, the dependable one, the one “most likely to succeed”. I thought that I could never share my own struggles, but my world was caving in at the time. I was holding a job, but could not pay my bills. I was applying for schools that I would never be able to attend. I was afraid of becoming homeless. I was afraid of becoming worthless to my family, my daughter, and the world. The last good fight I had in me was to find out how to get help with rent, get myself back into school, and find services to heal a newly formed tension between me and my daughter. I didn’t know what I was looking for at the time, but I found the answers in H.O.P.E. 

H.O.P.E. quickly helped me with temporary rental assistance, access to school grants and scholarships, and resources to sell my car and through a partnership gifted me a more reasonable vehicle. They also helped me manage my other expenses. They helped ease my stress and strengthen my relationship with my pre-teen daughter. They never made me feel like I was getting a handout – I was getting a lifeline. 

Through counseling, a career mentor, and access to temporary resources, including college support, H.O.P.E. helped me to get back on track. They helped me find the champion within myself to get back to school and to excel in my budding career in Human Resources. When my mother’s health deteriorated, a former H.O.P.E. graduate purchased buddy pass tickets so that I could fly first-class to go see my mother and Uber bucks to get from the airport to the hospital. Talk about going the extra mile! 

As I see it, if you are going to invest in a worthy cause, this is it…H.O.P.E. To serve just one single parent, the way they helped me, costs $4,582.50 for one year. Their goal is to serve 20 parents. Will you please join our team? What I am asking you to do today is to help me take this ball downfield to score another touchdown for a single parent who is afraid, discouraged, and hanging on by a thread. Donate today and join our team…take another single parent, like me, to the Superbowl!