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Jobless mom gets help from local group

By Staff | Mar 12, 2009

Heather Rodgers

Heather Rodgers’ life isn’t unlike thousands of others in Lee County who have found themselves unemployed and having to depend on others to survive. Like others who have lost their jobs, a new group of the jobless are coming from the middle class and like Rodgers, they never thought they would find themselves in this situation.

Rodgers is a single parent with a small three-year-old son.

They both live with a friend who has also lost a job. And they both have had to swallow their pride and accept food from others, something they never thought they would be forced to do.

“Yes it’s hard,” said Rodgers. “I was doing very well, making a thousand dollars a week at my job and then the economy went bad and I lost my job. I didn’t even file for unemployment; it was all something new to me. I tried to get some jobs cleaning houses and I got a few, but it wasn’t enough to live on,” she said.

Add to losing her job, Rodgers also had to leave her home that she had been renting. She treated the house as if it was her own. She planted flowers and

Group helps jobless mom: These are some of the people who have helped Heather Rodgers since she has lost her job and her life's savings. Standing behind Rodgers and her son are Dr. George Duncan, Mike Armstrong, Dewey Tyler and Nestali Velez. Photo by Mel Toadvine

made things pretty inside and out, she said.

“I loved that house, but one day I heard a knock on the door and when I went out, a server had left an eviction notice that I had three days to vacate the house,” she said.

“The papers said the house had gone into foreclosure.”

Rodgers said not even her landlord, a local real estate agency, knew the owner of the house was behind in his payments. The owners of the home lived in New York and Rodgers said she was always on time with her rent.

“It was awful, having to get out so fast. It was not something I ever thought I would have to go through,” she said. Thanks to her father and her step dad who helped her move, she was able to move in with a friend and share expenses.

Heather Rodgers and her son, Mateo. Mom is without a job and used up her savings. She has had to move in with a friend.

“Me and my son, Mateo, and our dog Toby, suddenly found ourselves in a situation we had not planned and didn’t think would ever happen,” she said.

Rodgers said her ex-husband helps out financially with as much as he can, but it can’t pay for all the expenses she and her son have to come up with. She said she pays half of the $600 a month rent now in a smaller place and her friend pays the other half.

She receives food from George Duncan in Lehigh, who runs the Peace B Still Foundation Inc. An evangelist and one-time mortgage broker, has devoted his time now in finding food and handing it out to people who need it without having to fill out applications.

“If they need food, we’re help to help. We’re just one of many in Lehigh who are helping people who have lost their jobs with food. We do what we can and

we have hundreds who are coming through here at 205 Joel Blvd. to get food.

“We need a big box truck, if someone could donate one that runs, to help us though. When we go out of the area to get food, we have to borrow pickups and vans to get it here,” said Duncan who is known around town as “Dr. Duncan.”

When Rodgers lost her job, she had to depend on savings of around $10,000 and after that was gone, she had to let her car go, too, because she couldn’t keep up payments.

So she found herself without a place to live and without a vehicle to drive to look for a job.

There are many who are facing the same situation like Rodgers. In the past, when times were hard, often it was people who made lower wages who found themselves with economic problems.

That’s not the case anymore, Duncan said.

“Now, we’re finding many in the middle class, people who had good jobs making good money unemployed and without much opportunity in finding another job.”

Rodgers has been without a job for eight months. She had worked for an aviation company in customer relations near Southwest Regional International Airport and when business slowed down, so did revenue and that’s when Rodgers said she lost her job.

She had been saving and taking courses to eventually go to dental school with plans of becoming a dental hygienist and she doesn’t want to give up on her dream of finishing college.

When she lost her job and her savings, she had to pull her little boy out of a day care center in Lehigh because she couldn’t afford to pay several hundreds a month for his care.

Now he spends all his time with her. He had been a student at the Lehigh Child Care Center near Lehigh Regional Medical Center. She praised the Center but said she didn’t have the money now to take him there.

Because she had lived in a nice house, she had accumulated nice furniture and other items that now won’t fit in the place she is sharing with a friend. She said she was forced to put it in a storage unit that cost her $230 a month and she said she got behind in payments.

“Being in this situation is embarrassing. I was a very independent person and I didn’t want to have to depend on my dad who lives in Port Charlotte or my

mom who lives in Fort Myers.

“They all have enough keeping up with things themselves,” she said.

When Duncan and a group of business tenants and friends of Duncan and Dewey Tyler found out of Rodgers’ plight, they got together and purchased her an older car, but it needs work, and Tyler said they planned to buy tires and brakes this wek and Rodgers has a friend who knows how to work on a car and make the necessary repairs.

Rodgers said that when her son turns four, she will have more time to find a job because he will be able to enter public kindergarten.

“I’m counting my pennies. I know there are a lot of people going through the same thing. I am sure they didn’t think they would find themselves having to

ask for help. It is not easy for me and other who have never gone through this, to now have a need,” she said.

Rodgers says she attends church at the New Life Assembly of God Church and has in the past volunteered to help others.

“Now I am in that spot and it’s not something that is easy to go through,” she said. “I have found it hard to let my pride down. It’s just hard to accept.”

“I handed out food to people who needed help and it made me feel good that I could do it,” she said.

“When I get back on my feet, get a job and can buy a newer car, I want to donate the car given to me, to someone else who may need it,” she said.