Ashley Osborne came to Chattanooga almost two years ago for a fresh start, and she hasn't allowed grass to grow under that opportunity.
That doesn't mean it's been easy.
The native Californian, 26, has lived in Tennessee since she was 10. However, she said family distractions in Knoxville, her previous residence, proved nettlesome, and she moved to the Scenic City.
"I've been able to do a lot of the things I wasn't able to do in Knoxville," Osborne said in a phone conversation a few days before Christmas.
The mother of three began training in electronic medical records at Miller-Motte Technical College and is on target to graduate in June. Health information clerk, patient record manager and medical records technician are just a few of the jobs she could secure when she gets out.
Osborne also has a job as a cashier and stock clerk at United Grocery Outlet.
And, after six months of shelter through Family Promise of Greater Chattanooga, she and her children - ages 10, 6 and 5 - now live in a house. A neighbor keeps her children when she is at school or work.
But sometimes when it rains it pours.
One day during the summer - Osborne doesn't remember if it was June or July - her 1989 Ford Expedition wouldn't start. It's always at the most inconvenient times, isn't it?
She eventually got it jumped off, but a subsequent diagnostic test pointed to a faulty alternator.
"It was frustrating for me," Osborne said. "I worked 12-hour shifts every day."
On one hand, she depended on the car for work; on the other, she couldn't afford the $508.41 to have it repaired.
Fortunately, Osborne said, a co-worker whose shift ended about the same time as hers and her boss were kind enough to pick her up at home and deposit her back home after work.
But the car sat idle for about a month.
In the meantime, she contacted Mary Ellen Galloway, executive director at Family Promise, who believed she could find a way to help.
She'd been "a blessing," Osborne said. She'd arranged for Osborne's children to go to the YMCA for recreation, and she'd been able to find funding for Osborne to pay for the security deposit for her home.
Now, Family Promise contacted the United Way of Greater Chattanooga, which manages the annual Times Free Press Neediest Cases Fund. The fund, United Way officials said, could pay for the new alternator.
Money for the fund comes from readers who contribute to it after seeing stories highlighting the needs of local residents. The fund helps people pay for things such as rent, medicine, transportation or utilities.
Chattanooga Times Publisher Adolph Ochs launched the fund during the holiday season in 1914. Since then, newspapers across the country have established similar funds and made holiday giving an annual tradition among newspaper readers.
In 2016, from January through October, Osborne was one of more than 170 people and families who received some $68,000 from the Neediest Cases Fund.
When the funding came through, she said she was "relieved." Another couple of days without her Expedition while it was repaired at Firestone Complete Auto Care in downtown Chattanooga, and she was ready to go.
It is because of those Chattanoogans faithful to the annual holiday appeal that Osborne has been able to zip to work, to shop for Christmas presents for her children and to do whatever has been necessary to advance her toward her Miller-Motte degree.
Fortunately, many people see the season as Ebenezer Scrooge's nephew Fred did in Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," "as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys."
Osborne is grateful - not only for the car repair assistance but also for all the resources Galloway and others at Family Promise helped her with.
"I'm really appreciative of the help I have received," she said.
Tax-deductible donations to the Neediest Cases Fund will be accepted through Dec. 31 and may be made by mail. A coupon elsewhere in this newspaper allows donors to make their gifts anonymously or in honor or in memory of someone. Checks should be made payable to United Way of Greater Chattanooga and sent to United Way, P.O. Box 4027, Chattanooga, TN 37405.