Dennis Hape

My mother passed away when I was 12 years old and my father developed some very serious problems. My sister was going to college at the time and left school to help my grandfather take care of me for 2 years. She helped me get into Milton Hershey School in Hershey, Pa. when I was 14. Shortly after that my sister moved to Minnesota and my brother was in the Air Force so we had drifted apart into different parts of the country and lost the bond that many families have living in close proximity. I moved to Texas 35 years ago and met and married my wife who already had 5 children and we had a 6th together so we have always struggled to pay the bills on a single income, let alone put money into savings. I’ve worked with West/Alorica for 25 years on July 29 of this year. My wife has health problems and her prescriptions are high along with doctor’s bills. My daughter and 3 granddaughters came to live with us and to make their lives better, I’m paying for pharmacology classes so money is still very tight. I received word of my sister’s passing from her grandson and the funeral was to be held in a few days in Grapevine, Tx. I did not have a lot of money left after paying bills and was at a loss to figure out how to make the trip. The train or Megabus round trip to Grapevine, TX from San Antonio, TX is not expensive and I had scraped up enough for all of us for the tickets but flying at $500 + per person was way out of my reach. My family is spread out all over the country from California to Georgia from Texas to Minnesota and everyone else was coming in but we would not have a place to stay. I haven’t seen my brother who now lives in Georgia in 30 years and any of my other relatives in 35 years. I had finally decided that we just could not go and it hurt, thinking of all the things that my sister had done for me that I no longer felt I could go and so much of the family would be coming together. A few hours before the end of the day the day before I would have to leave, someone suggested a contact person with MLBA. I contacted her and she said she would see if there was anything that MLBA could do to help. She came down with a gift card an hour later which was enough to cover my motel expenses for a couple of days. That was all I had to worry about and our trip was on. Although it was a sad occasion with the passing of my sister, I met and reconnected with relatives whom I have not seen for years or never seen and possibly never would have without that help from MLBA. I just wanted to say thank you for making my trip up to Grapevine a lot better than it may have been. Again, many, many thanks for the help I was given by MLBA for making it happen, especially on such short notice.
Thanks;