Currents News Staff
For the past 12 years, 30-year-old Jasmin Ford has had to hustle for everything she has.
“Gratitude is what gets me through. I mean becoming a nurse and being able to serve in the field that I’m in is the greatest honor of my life second to having my child,” she said.
She grew up on Chicago’s south side.
Now a single mother and a nurse, the first in her family to go to college.
She works two jobs, six days a week, and is saddled with 150-thousand dollars of student loan debt she never thought she’d pay off.
“There are times when I fall short, and I have to reduce my payment amounts, so there’s really not a timeline that I can necessarily see,” she said.
Until now.
“We know the burden that student loan debt places on people’s lives and slows down the trajectory and the change that they can make in the world, and to be able to remove that road block and that obstacle for Jasmin is just a dream come true for all of us,” said Mike Crawford from Fifth Third Bank.
A life changing moment for her and her son.
“I can save for your college. And we won’t go down that road again. You won’t be like me, you won’t have any debt. Changed the direction and the course of my life and the way I want to live. It’s not just the day to day anymore,” she said.