Hot Cares Christmas – Single Mom with Autistic Boy and Sick Mom Gets Some Relief this Festive Season

A retrenched single mom with two kids – one autistic – and a mother diagnosed with stage four cancer.

Those are the bare bones of Melanie’s story, which reached us via Sue, an old friend of Melanie’s mom.

“She looks after her mom, takes her to her doctor’s appointments, shops for two homes, and ensures her dad gets to work with his packed lunch, along with trying to work full time and look after two boys on her own,” said Sue.

It’s obviously been a struggle, both financially and meeting the needs of Jared, her 17-year-old autistic son, and her mom’s diagnosis was just the straw that broke the camel’s back, with Melanie left reeling.

“Her dad came out of retirement a few years ago to help with the boys’ expenses,” said Sue. “And it’s been a hectic time for the family. With the ever-increasing price of living and fuel, and Melanie being retrenched, paying school fees, let alone buying a toy, has become impossible.”

Fortunately, Luke, Melanie’s younger son, is on a sports scholarship at a primary school and has proved an absolute star. He’s already told his mom that he wants to remain on scholarship, so his grandpa can retire and his mom can have money for his brother.

“He never complains and his gratitude and love towards his mom runs deep,” said Sue. “She has raised her kids so well and you would never ever imagine they come from a single mom situation.”

Unfortunately, affording Jared’s specialised schooling has proved an incredible challenge, to the extent that he has only been going three days a week, with Melanie also running up a lot of debt with the school, Unity College, who, to be fair, have been good to her, allowing her to pay off that debt.

But that debt has now gone over R20 000, with Melanie left with no choice but to pull him out of school. This has filled her with dread, as previously he didn’t respond well to being home-schooled.

“He was forced to stay at home with his granny, who tried her best to do schoolwork with him,” said Sue. “He spiralled, became terribly anxious, and had ‘autistic’ meltdowns. He needed school, he needed intervention, and he needed the input of a schooling environment. It was really heart-breaking.”

We can see that, and that’s why Hot Cares is stepping in to help.

We’ll be settling Jared’s outstanding school fees from this year (R23 700) and will be stumping up fees for the whole of next year (R134 000), to ensure he goes to school five days a week, and we take that stress off Melanie’s plate.

“Melanie really is an incredible mom and has devoted her life to ensuring her boys have what is needed for sport and schooling,” said Sue. “She has even sold possessions so she could support her boys!”

But that’s not all!

Hot Cares will also be gifting the family a R5000 shopping voucher for Christmas and Luke a R5000 Sportsman’s Warehouse voucher, so that he can get what he needs for his rugby and athletics and enjoy a bit of a spoil.

We hope these gifts go at least some way towards making this a special Christmas for Melanie and her boys.