KBP Cares Stories: Jessica Marks
Earlier this year, Jessica Marks was diagnosed with an aortic dissection, a serious condition in which a tear occurs in the inner layer of the body’s main artery, affecting vital blood flow through and from the heart. Unfortunately, this issue quickly led to others and began to cause chronic aneurysms – preventing her from working full 8 hour shifts at her store indefinitely. With a family of four to take care of, she continued working as best she could to make ends meet.
Her bills continued to pile up while she had no choice but to work reduced hours to maintain her health. She then required an emergency surgery, which was another financial blow she just couldn’t find a way to manage. The urgent surgery on her heart and aortic artery couldn’t wait for her bills and struggles to slow down. Even after making it through this difficult procedure, her medical concerns didn’t stop there; complications resulted from her heart surgery and she was soon rushed into another procedure, this time for her spine. With all this going on, she had to remain on medical leave for over two months. She started to fall behind on her rent and utilities so drastically after this, that once she applied for KBP Cares’ assistance, her electric was set to be shut off the same week.
Our team worked with her to understand this extreme hardship she’d just been through and walked her through the application process expediently. Thankfully we came through with a grant award, catching her up on all her overdue rent and utilities so she wouldn’t have to carry the stress of debt and how she’d care for her children on top of her physical pain.
After we completed the process, she felt relieved and had hope that she could move forward on her own, all her debts a thing of the past. She had this to say to about her experience,
“KBP Cares is an awesome program to have through my job! I am truly blessed and thankful for the help I received! Thank you especially to the advocates who were with me every step of the way! I've been having serious medical issues with my heart since 2017 and recently had to have surgery, so I haven't been working. Me and my four children were in a bind. My manager mentioned the program to me, and it went from there. KBP Cares thank you guys so much, y’all are truly amazing and such a blessing to people in a time of need! May God Bless You All!”