Tanya Elkerton thought her life would get better after her 2005 graduation from Stride, a Lakewood program designed to help people get off welfare and make their own way.
Not only had she completed the class intended to teach people to manage their lives and their money, her temp work had stretched more than a year – the longest term of employment she’d had for some time.
“I thought I was a lot closer than I actually was,” she said of being self-sufficient.
But life kept beating her back.
There was less temp work. There were enormous day-care expenses.
On top of that, an accident with an uninsured driver decimated one car and left her nearly pushing its replacement around town for a year.
Family wasn’t an option, she said, and the fathers of her children had their own problems meeting child-support obligations.
Getting by, the 31-year-old from Arvada said, often meant she “robbed Peter to pay Paul.”
Though it beckoned, welfare wasn’t a place she wanted to return.
“Trying to find something to keep us afloat was very important to me instead of taking a huge step backward,” she said.
Elkerton relied on her Stride training, where clients are taught to “advocate for themselves, to find assistance and deal with their setbacks,” said Sarah Maxwell, the program’s interim executive director.
On the advice of a friend, Elkerton tried something different: She applied for help from a Baton Rouge, La.-based nonprofit funded by the distributors of intimate women’s apparel and products, the kind only sold at the type of in-home parties that made Tupperware famous.
The group, SPARCAS, or Slumber Parties Actively Restoring Character and Spirit, was created by Kim Brecheen, owner of Slumber Parties Inc., after the outpouring of support by the company’s 10,000 distributors to victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Brecheen thought her company could do more than simply help women improve their sensuality and relationships.
“They could help women empower their lives,” said company spokeswoman Jenny Gray.
Things were already starting to look up for Elkerton just before SPARCAS called in late November to interview her. She’d landed a full-time mailroom job with a state agency, after nearly eight years of temping there.
Still, all Elkerton hoped was that SPARCAS could help her catch up on $4,000 in overdue child-care expenses.
She got a whole lot more.
SPARCAS representatives appeared two days after the pre-Christmas blizzard, balloons and framed certificates in hand and hugs all around. Rather than a token gesture of a few bucks, Elkerton got a new Chevrolet Aveo and, after an inventory of her home, six shopping carts teeming with groceries and housewares – and a zero balance on her child-care debt.
Her children, Serena, 11, and CJ, 7, even got a bigger Christmas.
“Instead of helping a lot of people just a little bit, SPARCAS thought it best to save one,” Gray said.
As the SPARCAS reps left the Elkerton home, CJ couldn’t help but thank what he called his “Christmas angels,” Elkerton said.
“It feels so nice to have a new start,” she said. “I’m not embarrassed. I know where I’ve been and where I’m going. I’m just taking it as it comes.”
Staff writer David Migoya can be reached at 303-954-1506 or dmigoya@denverpost.com.
