Our Stories

Bonnie Cox, a technician at Rapides Regional Medical Center,  immediately went out of town to be with her sister, who had a massive heart attack and was declared brain dead. Her sister was in ICU and the family was considering withdrawing life support, but decided to wait 2 or 3 days to see if maybe by some miracle she would recover. Bonnie stayed with her until she knew for sure that her sister would recover or if preparation of a funeral would begin. Bonnie’s sister was in a coma for 6 days and Bonnie stayed by her side until she knew her sister would recover  but Bonnie was left with little PTO to support her time out of work.

“I never thought I would have to use the Hope Fund, but filled out the application to see if they could help me.” With no PTO, paychecks were small and the bills were getting behind. Bonnie needed help catching up and managed to build up more PTO when returning to work. Then the unexpected happened and the tables turned when Bonnie had a TIA in which she was hospitalized. “When the Hope Fund called me to collect more information from the incident with my sister, they told me my new situation put me in a bigger need for funding. The Hope Fund came to my rescue. Knowing that people working by your side are the ones that give to the Hope Fund and that they care enough to do that for one another is heartwarming.”