SOUTH BEND — Tomeka Carter had lost everything.
Living in Chicago with her mother and two girls, ages 2 and 6, Carter’s work hours were cut. On top of all her other expenses, the 28-year-old wasn’t making enough to afford her transportation to work, making the job not feasible.
“After that we lost everything,” she said. “Our house, the car we had. We came here with pretty much nothing.”
She brought her family to South Bend to move in with her brother. But it wasn’t long before her brother asked them to leave and Carter’s family was on the street.
Carter and her girls found space in the South Bend Homeless Center and her mother was able to stay at the YWCA.
But Carter’s life looks completely different now.
Carter was cleaning windows inside the Duncan Student Center on a rainy November day on the University of Notre Dame’s campus. She was one of 15 women on campus, wiping down walls, ceilings and doors, vacuuming and moping the newly finished buildings popping up around the stadium.
The women have been working since May, always wearing their red My Best Friend Services shirts, the local cleaning company hired by the university for the post-construction cleaning.
Like Carter, the lives of many of the 15 women were very different before they found the cleaning work. It was all thanks to a partnership between My Best Friend Services and St. Margaret's House that the women were able to make a change for the better.