GARDEN GROVE : Holidays Bring Hope to a Mother

Kim Holloway, 23, is looking forward to the holiday season.

Holloway will have her own Christmas tree. She’ll put presents under it for her son, Clifton, who will turn 5 early next month. And perhaps most important of all, she’ll have her own place. Plus she’s going to college and she has a job.

It hasn’t always been so for Holloway. For about a year, she and Clifton were homeless, she said. They lived in her car or in motels and sometimes were out on the streets.

“I felt so hopeless,” she said. “I thought things would never work out. What scared me the most was that I didn’t want to lose custody of my son.

“I was sick and tired of being out there and using (drugs). My life was going down, and I wasn’t a good role model for my son.”

But Holloway is a success story, someone who turned to several agencies and got her life back together.

A single parent, she enrolled at the Heritage House in Costa Mesa, a recovery residence for women and children. From there, she and her son went to the Thomas House Temporary Shelter for families in Garden Grove where she received additional counseling and instruction on budgeting, parenting and nutrition.

After graduating from the Thomas House in May, she got her own apartment in the Buena Clinton neighborhood of Garden Grove.

This fall she enrolled at Cypress College to get a two-year certificate in drug and alcohol counseling, a program that interests her very much, she said.

She is also giving something back to those who helped her by volunteering at Heritage House.

She does some substitute counseling, but mostly she answers the telephone, performs office duties and transports women to the doctor and probation office.

Holloway freely said that Heritage House and Thomas House were “life-savers” for her.

“Without either one, I don’t know what I would do. I made a total turnaround,” she said. “If I tell my story, it might help other women. “I spent the last holiday in a recovery home. This year is going to be very special.”

Sister Kathy Stein, program director at the nonprofit Thomas House, said that Holloway just needed a helping hand while getting back on her feet.

“She was very self-motivated,” Stein said. “When she came in, she was ready to go.”