L: “We’ve been married for five years. Our first date was a double date with mutual friends to New Orleans. We were Facebook friends and it took me a while to pursue her. She had five kids. I had one child, but I am very family-oriented and wanted more. We married and her kids are now mine.

The first three years were good. I was making a good living with my own landscaping and irrigation service. We rented a house in Daphne, but Sally hit and we had to move out.

My wife had breast cancer this summer. She was out of work for a while. I missed the busy season of my job because I was caring for her and the kids. We’re having trouble finding a place to live because of her credit, and we’ve been living in a motel since August. The kids are crammed in one room on blow-up mattresses and my wife and I are in the other. There was a time when we only had money for one room, so the kids slept in the room, and my wife and I slept in the car. Living in the motel takes everything we make, but someone blessed us with two rooms the weeks before Christmas.

My truck has an oil leak and is undrivable. We are working with one vehicle. I take the kids to school, then my wife and daughter use the car for different shifts at their retail jobs. If I had a vehicle, there are jobs I could do.

I didn’t come from much. My mom was a single mom with five boys. She worked at the Grand Hotel overnight and at a gas station during the day. I didn’t see her much and my brothers and I learned how to wash, cook and care for ourselves. I worked at Burger King for four years and bought a car.

I later realized how much mom struggled and pushed because she never talked about it or let us see it. She taught us how to give back and help people. That’s my purpose on this earth.

I wouldn’t wish living like this on my worst enemy, but my wife and our kids are my inspiration and the reason I get out of bed. I want to show our kids how to get back up. Giving up is not an option. I push education because that is how they are going to be better.”

F: “I was a single mom. I was four months pregnant with my son when the ultrasound showed that he didn’t have a heart valve. He had three open-heart surgeries, two strokes and a GI tube. He was pronounced dead twice.

We were living in an apartment on the Eastern Shore. I worked next door as an overnight caregiver. I got home then got everybody up, dressed, and on the school bus. I immediately went to my retail job until 2:30 p.m. I met the kids at the bus, did homework, fed, bathed, and put them to bed. I slept for 30 minutes and did it all over again.

I was determined to give my kids a better life than I had. I didn’t want them to know what it was like to be hungry or come home to the lights cut off, or an eviction notice on the door.

It was going okay until my son had another seizure. I took him to USA hospital in Mobile. He passed away as I pulled up to the hospital, but they gave him CPR and revived him. He stayed in the hospital for almost two months. He repeated first grade because he missed so much school. He’s in high school now, and the last time he went for a checkup, the cardiologist said it looked like his shunt was trying to back up. He’s been through so much, I can’t imagine another surgery. I’ll be caring for him for the rest of my life.

I missed work those months he spent in the hospital and got behind on our bills and rent. We moved in with my mom, but I still owed money to the landlord. They filed it as an eviction on my credit report and it is pulling down my credit score. We look every day for places to rent, but there isn’t much out there, and it’s even harder with an eviction on my credit report. Before I got cancer, I had paid off everything else on my credit report but the eviction.

I want to buy a forever home for my kids that nobody can take away. A place for kids in college to come at Thanksgiving and Christmas, or for grandbabies to come to Gigi’s house. At work I see families shopping for Christmas decorations and gifts for the holidays. Sometimes I go to the bathroom and cry because I can’t give that to my kids. Then I get myself together.

When I first met my husband. I wouldn’t go out with him. But he kept after me and I made him work for it. We have both struggled all of our lives. We are trying to learn how to work together and make life a little easier for our kids.”