Please Help A Senior Citizen in Need

My name is Elnora and I am 75 years old. My husband died seven years ago at the age of 67, after a long illness. We had been married for 50 years, and I still love and miss him dearly to this day. He and I had always had it hard paying our bills, but when he died, there was only enough life insurance (actually it wasn't even enough) to pay for his funeral. I only have my Social Security to pay my bills with, and I am in debt to credit cards about $15,000, not to mention all the monthly bills that come along like the electric bill, water bill, phone bill, heating gas bill, and taxes. I only get $14 a month in food stamps, just enough to buy groceries for about two days. I am sick with COPD and Macular Degeneration. I have worked hard all my life from the time I was a child. My three brothers, three sisters, and myself were given away to different families when I was about seven years old because our mother couldn't keep any of us. We had been thrown out of our home after our father was killed in our front yard (right in front of us) by his nephew. Mama went to stay with her sister, but she wasn't allowed to take us. I never had a childhood like other children, but I always worked hard for everything I ever had, and I appreciated everything I got. My husband worked hard all his life too. But it was never enough. It was all we could do to just make ends meet. Just once before I die, I would like to be out of debt, so I won't have to worry about how I'm going to pay all my bills. If I could get just enough money to pay my debts off, I would be most grateful. Anything you can do to help will be greatly appreciated, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart! I don't know how to prove to you that everything I've said is true, but it is. May God bless and keep you safe. Please send donations to:

Elnora Callahan
c/o Joyce Floyd
P.O. Box 247
Orrum, N.C. 28369

P.S. Please read my poem. It will give you an idea of the kind of childhood I had growing up. (I've always liked to write. Now that I can't see very well anymore, my daughter helps me with the actual putting it on paper part.)


Ragged Little Girl

There was a little girl that I once knew.
She was skinny and frail, but pretty too.
The clothes that she had were ragged and torn.
They were the clothes that others had worn.
Her shoes were always too big or too small.
Most of the time, she had none at all.
When she went to school in her ragged clothes,
the pain she felt, nobody knows.
The children would laugh at her and make such fun,
and she'd cry, as behind the bushes she'd run.
She lived in the country-she never went to town.
The people she lived with didn't want her around.
Her father died when she was seven.
Her mama said he went to Heaven.
Then, her mama, she went away.
Her life changed forever after that day.
When she went to bed at night she would cry.
She had no one to love her, and she wondered why.
I knew her pain, because you see,
that ragged little girl they hurt, was me.

Elnora Callahan