Maddie is an incredible young lady and I am happy to have met her. She's a single mother that is fully committed to giving her son a good life, and she works hard at it. She doesn't let anything stop her, but she has finally hit a wall that I'm not able to help her with on my own.
I met Maddie about 4 or 5 months ago when I was lucky enough to be able to have her start employment for me. She does her best to have a smile on her face and meet any adversity with a good attitude. When I met her, I found out that her two year old son had recently been involved in a bad car accident in a vehicle his mother was not driving nor was she even in. He was taken to Ann Arbor and was under intensive care for months. She would finish work, drive to Ann Arbor, be with her son, then drive back to Gaylord to work the next day on most days. That's over 6 hours of driving everyday on top of work. She couldn't afford to miss work and worked 5 days a week. Her son was finally able to return home just a few weeks ago after months of emergency surgeries and the doctors attending him not being sure if he was going to pull through.
While all of this was going on, her apartment flooded and she lost most of her belongings. Her apartment complex offered no help for housing and she had to move an hour away from work. She still showed up to work everyday and did a great job, and was as strong as she could be going through this whirlwind.
Since her son returned home, she hit two deer and pretty much destroyed her vehicle at this point. It was in need of tires before she hit the deer but she wasn't able to afford those. The first deer she hit destroyed her radiator and she replaced it herself and rigged it up. The second one she hit on her way home from work today(11/27) again destroyed her radiator, sent her into the ditch, and gave her two flat tires. She called me absolutely crushed.
I want to help her and do something for her to let her know that people care, and to ease her burden to some degree. I don't have the kind of money that would allow me to just buy her a decent vehicle, or I would, in a heartbeat. As it stands, I will likely be buying her something that runs and has heat so she doesn't end up homeless or worrying about how to feed her son, but what I can afford surely wont last very long. I am heartbroken that someone with such tenacity and willingness to overcome hardships in life can't seem to catch a break. Please, if you have anything to give, help me help her, help me give her a Christmas that will change her life for the better.
