“I didn’t want to go to a shelter,” says Melanie.  “I didn’t want to admit I was at that point.”  Melanie was unemployed, and scared.  Thanks to a spending problem she calls “huge,” she had no savings.  She stomped the pavement daily to hand out her resume.  A fast food chain finally hired her, but the low pay and sparse hours kept her precariously close to homelessness.  

Right after she found out she was pregnant with her son Kason, Melanie was unable to pay the rent.  She had no choice but to come to St. John’s.  “I started to think about it, I prayed, and I realized that maybe it could be a good thing,” she says.  Melanie jumped right into the community at the shelter, volunteering at shelter events and giving tours to visitors and donors.  With her polite and cheerful demeanor, she stood out as an obvious choice to begin training at Plates Café.

Melanie is now focused on finding housing and building her job skills at Plates, where she works as a cashier, greeting diners with her warm smile.  She continues to take classes at the shelter, and focuses in particular on her Budgeting class so she won’t wind up jobless and penniless again.  “I’m extremely grateful that there is a program available for me,” she says, relieved. “I don’t feel hopeless anymore.”