Single mom struggling to care for sons

Trying not to crumble under the pressure of a life filled with hardships, Simone Spaulding is seeking help to start her own small business.

Spaulding, 47, who is originally from Waltham Park Road in St Andrew, said that she is hoping to use the certification she earned from HEART/NSTA Trust in food preparation to open a grocery store and bookshop to provide for her two sons.

"I want to sell like ground provisions and like dry goods, and I'd do likkle cooking on the side," she said.

The 47-year-old told THE STAR that for the past few years, she has not had stable work or a place to call her own. Currently, her main source of income comes from her sporadic sale of medical masks. Spaulding said that she is not always able to afford the masks to resell and often operates at a loss.

"I'm up to my neck in stress. Right about now I not even live anywhere. Is kotch mi kotch wid somebody,"she said. Spaulding told the news team that she had to leave her last home three years ago because it was not only a "rubbish heap", but it was an unsafe environment for her children.

"I used to live off Waltham Park Road in a little shack, it's not even a house. It was a rubbish heap. It was rat-infested, it was all kinda something. So it was nowhere for them to stay; and if you know Waltham any at all, it's prone to all sort of something 'cause of gunman and all that, so I had to get them away."

Adding more fuel to an already-raging fire, as the new academic year beckons, Spaulding is worried about where her sons will attend school, as she has tried to get them transferred to new institutions.

"It a put stress pon me, is back to school and my two sons are not in school right now. I'm trying to get them transferred into a school. I don't even know what to do with them," she said.

Spaulding said that she is constantly worried about her boys, ages 15 and 16, as she cannot properly supervise them because she is forced to spend every day on the road to provide for them financially.

"I'm a single mother and mi cyah keep up with them. All a them something deh have me thinking, what must I do. Dem doah have a father, dem doah have uncle, dem doah have auntie; is just me from the get-go," she said.

Spaulding said that she already has her driver's licence, and is hoping to get a car so that she can transport her goods from where she is currently living to Kingston, where she would set up.

"I used to drive and I used to sell in Cross Roads. I couldn't maintain the little start-up weh me did have. If I could get a likkle vehicle. If I have to pay back for it, fine, but I really would love to have that. Realistically, the place I have is all the way in the hills. The transport is beating me bad, bad." In her last endeavour, Spaulding said that she had to finance her small business herself. She used to buy and sell goods, but balancing the books was difficult.

"When you take a stop, you don't make back all of that [what was spent]. And then I have the two kids. It just never balance out the way I wanted it to," she said. Now, Spaulding said that with the connections she has made, she is hopeful that will not happen again.

Persons wishing to help Simone Spaulding may contact her at (876) 842-2669.