I wasn’t sure where to turn. I was talking with our kids’ principal and he said, “Let’s call Catholic Charities to see if they can help.”

My name is Silvia, and this is my family’s hope story. The principal at our children’s school got an appointment scheduled for me with a Catholic Charities case manager. I needed help getting our gas turned back on. Jose, my husband, and I are immigrants from Mexico and we are blessed with six healthy children. Jose is a roofer which is seasonal and dependent on dry weather so he does not work a standard 40 hours a week. I stay very busy taking care of our kids. We were doing fine on our own until tragedy struck.

We were on I-70 highway when that big, multi-car crash happened in July, killing five people. We were in one of the cars that had stopped on the highway when the semi wrecked into the cars behind us. I was seven months pregnant and injured so they rushed me to the hospital and had to do an emergency C-section delivery two months early.

With me being in the hospital from my injuries and our baby girl in the neo-natal unit, Jose had to miss work to take care of our other children. With all the anxiety and stress of worrying about our newborn possibly having a brain injury along with my incapacitating injuries that kept me in the hospital for two months, we were more than a little stressed. Then add to our crisis that we were falling behind on our bills. I really felt hopeless.

The first thing our case manager did was assess our situation. I felt immediately better as she calmed our fears. Catholic Charities was able to pay our gas bill and get our heat turned back on. Our case manager also directed us to another agency that took care of our electric bill. Then our case manager took me through the Catholic Charities food pantry and helped me get groceries and some hygiene items for our family, as well as signed our family up for a Thanksgiving turkey. To top it off our case manager got us on the Christmas Adoption list.

And to start the new year out right, Cathollic Charities connected Jose with El Centro to find employment for the off season of his roofing job. We have so much to be thankful for…our baby girl is doing fine, I’m recouping, we are in our home, our kids are going to have presents under the tree… it’s a joyful Christmas! God bless Catholic Charities!