Jennifer Bell was still attached to a catheter when she parked in front of the nonprofit Turning Points.
A 46-year-old business owner and former certified nursing assistant, she had raised five kids, largely on her own. She thought life was supposed to get easier now that they were grown and gone.
But this fall, after a series of surgeries on the heels of flooding in her home, Jennifer felt her world coming apart. For the first time in 30 years, she needed to ask for help.
Thanks to the dignity she was once shown at another low point in her life, Jennifer took a deep breath and found the courage to step outside and head for the front door.
“It’s hard as a person who has come so far to have to go and ask for help”
All her life, Jennifer has been the independent, caregiving one.
Among the oldest of 27 cousins growing up in a rural town near Tallahassee, she changed plenty of diapers, cooked countless meals, and fixed many a car battery.
Her grandma inspired her to go into nursing when Jennifer took care of her in her final days battling cancer.
Jennifer was 17 at the time, having graduated from high school the year before. She was also a single mother after giving birth to a daughter that year.
Jennifer Bell, 46, of Bradenton lost months of work following three emergency surgeries. Plus her apartment was flooded and damaged. Season of Sharing and Turning Points helped her during her recovery.
Case managers at a local pregnancy center helped her find affordable housing and child care. Just as importantly, they treated her with dignity and respect.
“It was a game changer for how I was able to design my life going forward,” she said of the resourcefulness she learned.
It was the start of many years of juggling – as she studied, worked in home health and volunteered at the pregnancy center.
Through her 20s and 30s, she married, had more children and moved to the Tampa area. Along the way, Jennifer helped run a floor installation business. She also kept studying and branched out into criminal justice and forensics pathology. For several years she worked at Citibank as an international investigator.
After her divorce, she cared for all five kids while working full time and starting a business helping out-of-state adult children of Florida residents with estate affairs after their parents pass away.
Two years ago, following the birth of her second grandchild, she helped care for him, too. Last year, she and her new life partner decided to move to Bradenton to be closer to her grandson and his parents in Sarasota.
Jennifer found a job at a natural foods grocery store and started from scratch making new contacts at retirement, independent and assisted living centers for her business.
Then three back-to-back hurricanes pummeled or passed by the region this summer and fall, forcing Jennifer to miss numerous days of work.
Then, after Hurricane Milton, the pipes broke in their old building, sending water flooding into their home.
But the biggest disaster of all came in late October – when Jennifer wouldn’t stop bleeding. To address the hemorrhaging, she was rushed in for emergency surgery.
When she woke up, Jennifer was told that due to complications, she didn’t have just one operation but three. Her recovery time would now be a matter of months, not weeks.
Upon her release, she didn’t know how she’d pay her rent – her savings depleted the last several years by helping her kids.
“I was overwhelmed and didn’t know what to do,” she said.
“It’s hard as a person who has come so far to have to go and ask for help.”
“Still good things out there”
Just as she had almost 20 years before, Jennifer felt respected and understood by case managers, this time at Turning Points. Meanwhile, she met other people like her who – after a health emergency, soaring rents, storm damage – were suffering through a crisis.
She was grateful that she reached out when she did.
“I was a normal working-class person and ended up with emergency surgery and could not do it,” she said of paying her bills. If she had let her pride get the best of her, she believes, she would have wound up homeless, too.
Through Turning Points, Jennifer learned she could qualify for assistance, which covered multiple months of rent through a combination of funds from Season of Sharing and a limited FEMA grant – giving Jennifer time to heal.
When Jennifer heard about the help, she broke into tears.
“The biggest thing it brought for me was a reminder that there are still good things out there, there is hope, there is possibility,” she said.
Help your neighbors in need: Donate to Season of Sharing
“Sometimes you just have to keep adjusting,” she added. “Life comes in waves. Either you ride the waves, or you get plowed under and flipped around. If you don’t come up for air and take time for yourself, you’re not going to recover.”
Kathleen Cramer, executive director at Turning Points, said ever since the onset of the housing crisis several years ago, more clients than ever before are just like Jennifer – first-timers asking for help.
“They just couldn’t keep up with the increasing rent, and their budgets just didn’t work anymore,” Cramer said.
She added that Jennifer’s message is an important one and something they repeat over and over: come for help before you’re really in trouble. The majority of what Turning Points does is to prevent homelessness. Yet many struggling residents believe it’s not for them.
“That is what the support is for, to help people who need a hand up,” she said. “That is why people donate their dollars to Season of Sharing and Turning Points – to give people a bridge when they’re having a tough time. They shouldn’t wait until when they are desperate.”
For now, Jennifer hopes to be back to work by the end of this month. She still has plans to rebuild her business so someday she can return to it full time – and also help retirees transition when downsizing from a house into independent or assisted care after the death of a spouse.
Long term, she dreams of buying a few acres of land where she and her kids can put tiny houses so they can all be close – just like the way her family was when she was growing up.
“I made it through all those things, and here we are now,” she said proudly of her own kids’ independence, good jobs and stable lives – having seen them through their own various medical crises, troubled times and transitions.
How to help
Season of Sharing, a program administered by the Community Foundation of Sarasota County, assists individuals and families in an emergency with rent, mortgage, transportation, utility and childcare expenses in Sarasota, Manatee, DeSoto and Charlotte counties.
You can donate to Season of Sharing by going to cfsarasota.org or calling 941-556-2399. You can also mail a check to Season of Sharing, Community Foundation of Sarasota County, 2635 Fruitville Road, Sarasota, FL 34237.
This story comes from a partnership between the Sarasota Herald-Tribune and the Community Foundation of Sarasota County. Saundra Amrhein covers the Season of Sharing campaign, along with issues surrounding housing, utilities, child care and transportation in the area. She can be reached at samrhein@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Sarasota Herald-Tribune: Season of Sharing helps Bradenton mom after storm, medical emergency