Tough Choice: Pay Bills or Buy Food
Cori and her son, Hunter, share a special bond.
“He’s smart, he’s polite, he’s not afraid of life. Even though he’s a fighter, he’s kind,” Cori says.
Cori and Hunter have been through a lot together. Cori became a single Mom after losing her husband in a drive-by shooting.
She shares, “They emptied the clip into his vehicle while he was throwing the newspaper to supplement our income.”
After her husband died, Cori found a job manufacturing airplane and auto parts, getting up every morning at 3 o'clock to go to work. Even with the steady income, she found herself choosing between groceries or paying the electric bill.
“Here, yeah, I’m working, but, based on what you get as an income as a single parent and having to run a household, I didn’t have anything,” says Cori.
On top of the financial struggle, Cori knew she needed emotional and spiritual support.
“You’re trying to grasp for anything you can to hold onto and it’s like, there’s nothing else,” she says, recalling the day when she thought, “‘I need a mentor, I need to get plugged in somewhere, I don’t know.’”
Then Cori found out about Operation Blessing partner Hill Country Daily Bread.
Cori laughs as she says, “It really is a blessing in a box! You’re gonna get some frozen meat, you do get rice or you’re going to get pasta. It lasts, you know? You can make a full meal and feel normal and feel full and feel content, have a breath and just say, ‘Okay we can eat and we can pay electricity.’”
Cori also found the faith-based mentor she so desperately needed.
She says, “As soon as I met Lulu, it was instantaneously, ‘Let’s pray, what you got going on?’”
Ministry director Agnes Hubbard says the work they do wouldn’t be possible without the support of Operation Blessing.
She says, “The partnership that we have with Operation Blessing is vital. We match the spiritual, the relational, and the resources together to form this sort of envelope of care around people in need.”
Cori shares, “It makes a huge difference in a single mom’s household to have a stable, reliable plate on the table and be thankful for that.”
“We couldn’t afford to do what we do today without Operation Blessing,” says Agnes. “So please give. Give generously. It directly impacts the life of people in the United States, all over.”
“Don’t hesitate,” adds Cori. “The return is astronomical. Thank you, just to hear that people actually really want to help other people, it’s awesome!”
