The love YOU share gives our residents like Carla hope for a better life…

The love YOU share
gives our residents like Carla hope for a better life…

Growing up, Carla’s father was an alcoholic, and it drove her mother to leave. Yearning for that lost family environment, Carla decided to become a mother at age 17.

She soon had two young children, and their father spent all his time working and going out with friends. “I was left home with the children. And so beer became my companion.”

Carla went through a breakup with her children’s father, and then experienced another breakup after that. Feeling saddened at the continued breakdowns in her family, she turned to old friends and old habits with substance abuse. “I developed a pattern… I struggled with it off and on for 35 years.”

With her kids grown and having families of their own, Carla ended up living in her car. Her kids didn’t want her under the influence while around her grandchildren. She told herself, “Carla, you need to find yourself a bed and get yourself clean.”

“I knew I had to do something, something had to change.”

When she came to Long Beach Rescue Mission, everything changed for Carla.

“This is a beautiful place,” she says. “The love that’s felt here… I’ve found the family that I yearn for.”

Carla is sober now and is in our Women’s New Life Program.

“Coming here has just been a wonderful experience,” Carla says. “Once I got here and found out that it was a faith-based program, that’s when I knew I was home.”

Through practical life-skills training like computer classes, she’s feeling set up for future success. In addition to securing housing, she hopes to hang onto her sobriety, improve her relationship with God and find work in medical billing or a position at the Mission.

Carla now has strength for her future because of your heart of compassion for her and other neighbors in need. Because you chose to share God’s love, she has a path forward in life. “I’m in a safe place now. I can rest now. Since coming to the Mission, I have found my faith again.”

To read the rest of this issue of Rescue Review, click here.