Hi and thank you for reading Cohen's story. My name is Pam Zielinski and Cohen is our 19 year old grandson. Cohen is a wonderful young man who is trying to build a new life in MI after growing up in an unhappy situation here in NY.

Cohen spent a year with us after graduating high school and surprised everyone with his resilience and tenacity while trying to start a life of his own. He had a girlfriend that he had an online relationship with for several years and this past Christmas, they decided to move in together and try to make it work in person. They had met previously in person and things seemed to be just as good or better in person as they were long distance so they decided to make the leap.

Cohen had bought a car, got a loan to do so on his own and had a steady job at Walmart in Amsterdam, NY. He was such an appreciated employee that when he moved to Reed City, MI, the Amsterdam Walmart arranged for him to continue with the company at a different store in MI.

Life was good. He was happy, driving to work every day as scheduled, making enough money to pay his car loan, car insurance, rent and other bills. Then disaster struck. Cohen started having serious problems with his car and found out that he had a blown engine. For whatever reason, the car had developed a large hole in the top of the number one piston, rendering it pretty much unusable. The result is that the car needs either a new engine or thousands of dollars to repair the damage which Cohen does not have.

Just starting out, Cohen has only enough money right now to pay his bills for 2-3 months with no cushion for replacing an engine in a car that he owes over $7000 on. Every option is a bad one for a young man just beginning to try and make it totally on his own. A used engine will cost $4000. To try and sell the car without a running engine will probably net about $1-2000. A rebuilt engine is nearly $4200, plus installation. None of these options are viable for him right now. We're not talking new brakes, we are talking a total engine replacement.

On top of everything else, Cohen lost his job. HR claims he did not call in the first two days that he was without a vehicle. He has proof on his phone that he made the call both days, but management will not even look to see if he is telling the truth, taking the word of the HR people that he just "didn't show up". It's a fireable offense and despite that he has an otherwise clean work record and has never missed a day previously, he is now without any income to pay the loan on a car that is not driveable. Cohen has worked very hard to keep his credit record intact and has done so, as proven by being able to take out a car loan on his own without a cosigner just shortly after turning 19.

He has talked to the bank and they have agreed to convert the car loan to a personal loan, but he still has to pay it back. He is trying to sell the car, which has everything done that the manufacturers recommend for the mileage, but that money will go to paying off at least some of the loan to hopefully reduce his payment some. And he needs another car. He does not care year, model, looks, as long as it can get him safely from point A to point B. It's tough finding a job when he has no transportation save for friends and no mass transit available. But he's working on that end of it, filling out applications on a daily basis both in person and online, as well as exploring temporary unemployment and locally offered career training to try and find work of any kind and stay afloat while trying.

Please consider donating to this deserving young man so that something totally out of his control will not crush his drive and determination. Even $5 can help. Thank you!