One day in early fall of 2023, Montgomery resident Kimberly Brown stood outside of her home wondering what she would do when temperatures dropped.
The office where she worked was on the verge of bankruptcy and hadn’t paid her in two weeks. Her rent was due soon, her fridge was running low on fresh groceries and her daughter had outgrown her winter coat. If a cold front came through before a paycheck did, that might just be the thing to send her over the edge.
“I was just having a hard time making ends meet,” Brown said. “Even working, everything was so expensive.”
A few days later, her coworker told her about an anti-hunger program that she had joined with the nonprofit Equal Justice Initiative. The program was simple: EJI identified people who were food insecure and provided them with a prepaid card monthly. No strings, no strict instructions, just support for those who needed it.
Brown reached out to EJI, and within two weeks, she met with an employee to pick up her card.
“That was heaven-sent,” Brown said.