For the Harrisons, purchasing their Trailblazer through Rides was a turning point that has enabled them to keep working, attending medical appointments, and get groceries.

Anira describes their story this way:

"When my husband, Matthew, married me in 2016, I had some physical challenges but I was a working single boy-mom, educated, community-focused and passionate about the organizations I worked with. We couldn’t have seen the future that would unfurl before us."

A debilitating shift in Anira's disability, the unwillingness of the government to recognize her inability to work anymore, and the barrage of hit after hit that their finances took for years.

"The final break was that on the actual drive to take my truck in because the transmission and the transaxle were both dangerously going out, my husbands car’s timing chain broke and took out something in the motor with it. We went from two vehicles to get our family to the store, doctors' appointments, work and home to no vehicle at all… we were crushed and lost."

These setbacks didn't keep Matthew from figuring out a way to get to work, even when it meant biking 20 miles a day and two bus rides - at 5:30am in the winter. Talk about grit . But Anira was still stuck at home, and there was no reliable way to get groceries or to doctors' appointments. 

This is when the Harrisons found Rides and applied.

Abigail, our RIDES program manager shared:

"When Anira reached out to me, I felt that she found our program for a reason. Her story moved me and her character as well as her husband Matthew’s were proven to be exactly what we here at Rides are looking for: individuals who are looking for a hand-up not a hand-out and who work hard for everything they earn. Times of hardship and desperation do not discriminate. They can choose any person at any given time. What matters most in those times of hardship however is how you choose to move forward." The Harrisons are fighters.

After faithfully working through the Rides process for 7 weeks - taking the budgeting class from Mountain West Bank (MWB), the Vehicle Maintenance 101 with Lake City Auto, working out the low-interest loan with MWB, and the vehicle itself being donated, repaired by KTEC, and inspected by Lake City - after this, the Harrisons finally drove home in the new-to-them 2002 Chevy Trailblazer. Because of our community coming around them in intentional ways, their lives are forever changed.