Enlightened Helping Hand Foundation

I’m the mother of three sons. I suddenly become a widow and very unexpectedly, a single mother. I was grieving the loss of my husband when the new reality set in: in addition to being a sole caregiver, I had to become also the sole provider.
For the sake of my children, I survived and succeeded. Getting to this point however was anything but easy. I learned from first hand experience, how it feels to go hungry and not be able to feed my kids. I feared becoming homeless and had dreams of living on the streets with three children in tow. It didn’t happen to me. But it is happening to other single parents allover the country. My personal experiences turned me into an Advocate for Struggling Single Parents and inspired the creation of Enlightened Helping Hand Foundation.

EHHF provides support for disadvantaged single mother families

• with individual case working
• with needed goods
• with monthly food distribution
• with monthly workshops teaching skills that lead to self-sufficiency

Enlightened Helping Hand Foundation (EHHF) encounters families in crisis every day. We’re overwhelmed by pleas for help from desperate single parents asking for help with rent payments. Usually a single rent payment separates these normal families from homelessness.
In an effort to help disadvantaged single mothers and fathers with sole custody of their children, EHHF explored housing resources nationwide: they’re sparse and the process of obtaining subsidized housing is long. For families facing homelessness right now, the existing programs provide little respite.

I and Enlightened Helping Hand Foundation are aware of this issue for a while. We’ve been doing our best to provide referrals and resources intended to relieve the suffering. Still, we didn’t issue a public appeal for help, until now. What’s changed?

A few individual cases have come to our attention that simply couldn’t be ignored. I know from personal experience how tough single parenthood is; how vulnerable the single parent and underprivileged children are. I can’t begin to imagine how difficult single parenthood is for a cancer patient unable to work or another seriously ill patient who can’t work while undergoing medical treatment. To some extent, every single parent is vulnerable; to some extent the struggle of every single mother isn’t fair. But single parenthood while dealing with a serious illness, inability to work and financial crisis so severe that it involves hunger and homelessness is beyond my capacity to comprehend. How can such tragedies take place in America?! We’re the Country that cares. We have a heart for whales and polar bears; for accident victims; for survivors of natural disasters worldwide… WE HAVE TO HAVE A HEART AND RAISE FUNDS TO STOP THE SUFFERING OF THE MOST VULNERABLE SINGLE PARENT FAMILIES, RIGHT HERE IN THE US! 

There is no way to pay monthly rents of thousands single mother families. We could however create a way to keep the most vulnerable, single mother families from becoming homeless and keep them intact, safe, clean and fed while individual solutions for each family are being worked on.

Here’s the dream: to create a Safe Family Haven for Struggling Single Parent Families, sort of a transitional home for single mother families in crisis. It would be a place where every family gets a clean, safe room to stay and three meals a day while solutions for each family are being developed. The children would be cared for; the parents could learn how to improve their work and money management skills and – if able-bodied - the parents would work to pay for their stay… Help me and Enlightened Helping Hand Foundation make it happen!

The goal is to create a Safe Family Haven for Struggling Single Parent Families that offers temporary residence, nutrition, childcare, education and workplace for single parents for whom individual solutions are being created so as to restore the endangered, single mother families to independence and self-sufficiency.

For additional information about Enlightened Helping Hand Foundation, its work and goals, please visit EHHF.org.