;){kind=icon}
“I was working two jobs when the transmission went out on my old car,” Kenya explains. A single mother of two, she relied on that car to get to work, drive her children to school, and shop for groceries. Kenya couldn’t afford the expensive repairs and her low credit score only qualified her for loans with double-digit interest rates. Living paycheck to paycheck, the broken-down car pushed Kenya’s tenuous hold on personal and financial stability to its breaking point.
Help arrived in the form of Peninsula Family Service’s Ways to Work program. Each year, the program provides low-interest loans to parents like Kenya, helping them purchase reliable used vehicles and begin the process of repairing their credit and building a strong financial foundation. Kenya’s loan was approved in April last year, and just two months later she drove her “new” Honda Civic to an interview at Kaiser Permanente, earning a life-changing position in their Adult Psychiatry Department.
A new job is just the beginning, Kenya knows the regular monthly loan payments will improve her credit score and eventually qualify her for another life-changing loan. “I’d like to buy a home someday,” she says. “I’m going to get my credit up and then I can have a place to call my own.” While our Ways to Work program helps Kenya achieve her dreams, she believes her daughters reap the greatest rewards. “At the end of the day, I’m not working three jobs just for me. Everything I do is for my daughters. I ask them to give me their very best because I’m doing everything I can to see them succeed.”
