Success Story: Carla

Carla says that Wheels of Success gave her family the perfect Halloween treat when they gave her a 2001 Daewood Leganza in October. Before that, she didn’t know how many more of life’s cruel tricks she could endure. After her 15-year-old daughter was murdered, Carla’s life began to spin out of control financially and every other way. She says that she was always crying as were her other children. Then one day she prayed for the strength to carry on for her family. She decided her daughter was such a happy girl that she would not want her mother to be so sad.

Meanwhile, Carla’s employer – Hillsborough County Schools – recommended her to the Wheels of Success program. When the call came from WOS, Carla’s first thought was that someone was playing a terrible joke on her. Instead of a trick, however, she says that it proved to be the perfect Halloween treat! Carla really believed that she could move forward given the self-sufficiency a vehicle would afford her; now she had the chance to prove that.

Says Carla, “I really feel like such a different person since getting the car. I didn’t even realize how disillusioned I had gotten about life until I started feeling like myself again. Now, I can take myself, my kids and my grandkids anywhere we need or want to go.”

Carla says that everyone else notices the change in her also. She tells everyone she meets about what Wheels of Success did for her life. “I’ve already found someone to donate a van and someone else to donate a car,” she shared. “I just tell them, ‘Look you can help someone else like me by doing this.’ I really believe in the program’s philosophy of paying it forward!”