“I want Keelan to grow up with options,” says Ashleigh, 18, who attends the
She and partner Michael, 20, along with their 9-month-old boy Keelan, are on the verge of another move. This time they’re relocating from their northwest basement suite into a rental that’s closer to Michael’s work on the east side of the city.
“With all the furniture NeighbourLink gave us, the place is too small here!” laughs Michael from the kitchen.
Much-needed dressers, chairs, a kitchen table, crib and playpen – first donated to NeighbourLink by generous Calgarians – now take up residence in the couple’s home.
Their other furniture, including two couches and a television, were all provided by supportive family and friends.
“I hope that we don’t struggle our whole lives,” says Ashleigh, who wants to have a happy family more than anything else. “We are [happy] right now – and I don’t want that to change.”
Sherry, 50, is taking steps to stop struggling too.
Calgarians’ donations of gently-used second-hand furniture have “filled in the corners” of her home, providing her with everything from garbage cans to baking dishes to a double bed.
One of the avid reader’s favourite pieces is her bookshelf.
“I don’t know what I would have done,” said Sherry, who had no choice but to flee her home in October of 2010 and leave almost everything behind.
After couch surfing at her mother’s and renting a basement suite, she too is on the verge of moving again – this time into a subsidized apartment that will cost her half the rent she’s paying now.
Sherry has epilepsy and first heard about NeighbourLink from a social worker at the Foothills Hospital
She shopped the aisles of Goodwill and Women In Need Thrift Stores, searching for anything she could afford to buy to furnish her home.
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