Story and image from Good Morning America
After years of effort, a single mother of two has paid off over $48,000 USD in debt.
Chelsea Haley of Marietta, Georgia was teaching in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, in 2015, on a two-year commitment to Teach for America, which is an organization that recruits recent college graduates to work in low-income schools. Her son, Jerome, was in her 4th-grade class at the time.
When Haley saw Jerome getting suspended from school and failing to progress academically, she started spending time with him -- going to his football games, buying him school supplies and more. Soon, Jerome asked Haley if he could live with her and in 2016, Haley gained full custody of the teen, and eventually, of his little brother Jace as well. Tragically, support systems for single parents in the United States, especially adoptive parents, are substandard, leaving Haley with absurd debt. Haley said she wiped out her savings for attorney fees when seeking custody of the two boys. She also accumulated debt to afford taking care of them, which was piled onto "deferred student loans." In order to recover, she was forced to take on side jobs and move in with her parents, but she's finally debt-free.
"It doesn't feel real yet," Haley, mom of Jerome, 17, and Jace, 6, told "Good Morning America." "It's so amazing. I even logged into my student loans and it said, 'Cleared. Zero balance.'" Her current goal is to save money for a new house and prepare Jerome for college. Both boys are thriving in school, Haley said.
"It allows me to focus on the boys' future," she said. "Saving money for them, and not spending it on my past."
