Raphael House was one of the first organizations to receive a grant from FOCUS. This is a story of a woman who was helped with your grant. Jane, a single mother with two young children, came into shelter for what she thought would be a one-month stay.  It came out that Jane’s credit card balances were through the roof and she needed help budgeting her paychecks. Although the family had only planned to stay one month, they ended up staying almost four months. Jane and her case manager would sit down and talk about ways to reduce her credit card balance.  During her last budget meeting, Jane calculated that she would finally be able to fully pay off all her credit cards that she had been working so hard to reduce. She could look into the future and start saving for her children’s education.  She then took all of her credit cards out of her wallet and with a dramatic flair, picked up the scissors from the desk, cut them all up!