My name is Kearsten. I have a family of 6 which includes my wife Stephani, my son, Caden (14), my twins Benson (3, almost 4) and McKenna (3, almost 4), and our youngest, Melody (just turned 3). We have a very large, active family and we depend on our vehicles to be able to function as a household. We have had the absolute worst luck with vehicles and have come to a point of desperation. About a year and a half ago, my Ford Explorer blew a gasket and stopped retaining coolant, so it became inoperable and financially unrealistic to fix due to our financial situation at the time. My wife had been out of a job due to medical reasons but has had a hard time getting on disability and kept getting the runaround. So that meant my income was all that we had. I had just started working on building up a clientele and running my own cleaning service, so the income was not great. We were not going to survive much longer and we don't have much left to lose, honestly. It was cheaper for us to buy a new car than it was going to be to fix the one we had, so we shared my wife's car for a few weeks while we searched and saved for a new car with the help of my mom and ended up buying a 2005 Chrysler Town and Country with 140,000 miles on it. Shortly after buying the van, my wife's car became inoperable beyond repair and we were back to sharing a car. My wife was active in her job search now and I was working as much as I could find work, and I wasn't short of work between my clients, my oldest son's soccer practice and games, transporting the 3 littles to their daycares for the day and picking them all up, making sure to schedule clients in order to be in all of these places at one time, and trying to make the car available for my wife to attend interviews and appointments. Fast forward to about 3 weeks ago... my wife was hired at a daycare that had room for all 3 littles and it's full-time hours and she will be licensed as a preschool teacher once she completes their curriculum. She is really enjoying it. My work schedule has been picking up fast. I just struggle with the restrictions of working only between the hours of 10 and 6 because that's when I drop and pick up the family from daycare, aka wife's new job. I am also planning to start school in the fall to be a dental assistant. I am just trying to get all my ducks in a row and map out what that would look like in hopes that I can make it work. But then last Thursday, my family's only running vehicle, the van, has become unsafe to drive and financially unfixable with an overload of critical repairs needed and with the age of the car and the completely rusted out frame that won't even hold up on a jack, its really not worth the money it will take to fix... and we are absolutely broke with debt up to our ears which unfortunately results in bad credit for the time being so we really have no leg to stand on. We are behind in so many bills already and now the one thing we rely on to be able to provide for our family has become benign and we are terrified. These funds would all be put into purchasing a reliable vehicle so that I can resume my cleaning services to save for a second vehicle and the cost of dental assistant school as well as to transport my family to and from their daily activities.