Imagine you get diagnosed with cancer.  Then imagine while on leave for treatment of that cancer, you lose your job.  Then imagine someone tells you they are going to take away your home because you are behind on payments because you lost your job because of that cancer; and not just any home, but the home where you have lived for 20 years with your family.  For most, we couldn’t begin to imagine this confluence of tragedy; but for Frances Stoney-Graham and her family, it was a reality as harsh and bitter as a winter day.

“It was just devastating,” recalls Frances, who pleaded for time to get the payments back on track.  But try as she might, she soon discovered her home in pre-foreclosure listings and found herself crying as she watched would-be buyers driving passed to take a look.  “So I said to myself, I’m giving this to God because all of it was too much for me to handle,” she says.  Soon thereafter, a worker at her grandson’s school told her about The Home Preservation Fund, a program managed by United Way 2-1-1 that was established to assist homeowners who are in danger of losing their homes due to disability or illness.

A school-bus driver for nearly 20 years, Frances has worked hard all of her life to build a home for her family.  And as devastating as her illness and treatments have been, her greatest challenge in all of it has been not being able to get up and go to work.  “It just was the hardest thing to accept, not to be able to do anything physically,” she says. 

Through her faith and determination and with help from her community, Frances is now caught-up on her payments and finished with her cancer treatment.  She is focused on healing and committed to finding ways to help others, beginning with advocacy for early cancer detection.  “If I had one message to all women 40 years and older, it is to please get your mammograms, because early detection saves lives and there is help and there is hope for tomorrow.”

Fighting back tears, Frances struggles to express just how grateful she is for the help she received from her community, “Words could never be enough to actually say what I feel…and if I am able to work again I would donate as much as I possibly can to United Way for helping me; for helping me when I really needed help.”

United Way of the Coastal Empire is proud to support the Home Preservation Fund program.  For more information, call 2-1-1.