‘Poverty is nothing to play with,’ says Macon woman left jobless by illness

Editor’s note: To donate money, furniture or toys to Yolanda Clay and her daughter, the subjects of today’s Reindeer Gang fundraiser feature — part of the Telegraph’s annual profiles of people and families in need at Christmas — call Meals on Wheels at 478-745-9140.

One afternoon back before Thanksgiving, Yolanda Clay was at her kitchen table reading the Bible when there was a knock at her door.

“Come on in,” Clay said.

Two women from Meals on Wheels stepped inside. Clay was expecting them.

The women came carrying groceries: a large frozen pizza, a cooked rotisserie chicken.

When the women were gone, Clay, reading Psalms by the sunlight pouring through a window blind near her stove, told a visitor, “God is so good.”

Clay’s refrigerator had been all but empty, her cupboards bare. There was a loaf of bread and a jar of Kroger peanut butter on the table. She had no money to pay bills. Her electricity was a few days from being shut off.

“That’s what I was praying about,” said Clay, 43.

The folks from Meals on Wheels had left her a receipt. They had paid her power bill.

“Thank you, Jesus,” she had told them. “Y’all been so good to me.”

A couple of summers ago, Clay had a stroke one evening after church. Half a dozen or so surgeries later, heart and kidney and asthma problems have left her jobless. In the past, she has worked in nursing homes and as a school bus monitor and, most recently, at Meals on Wheels.

“I don’t like to be the person receiving,” she said.

When medical problems set in, Clay couldn’t provide for her two young children. She felt rejected, judged, looked down on. She grew depressed.

“I just felt unworthy,” she said, sobbing as she spoke, hunched over her Bible. “I don’t feel beautiful anymore like I used to.”

One of her children, a 9-year-old son, lives with Clay’s sister in Florida.

A daughter, TaKayla, 7, still lives with Clay.

Originally from Macon, Clay grew up near Chicago but moved back to Georgia about a decade ago.

She lives off Houston Avenue on the south side of Pendleton Homes.

She and her daughter need new beds and a sofa for their barren living room. They had a bedbug infestation earlier this year when someone gave them a bug-ridden couch. They had to throw out all their furniture and can’t afford to replace it.

With Christmas coming, aside from finding a new sofa and perhaps a television, Clay would like to get a dollhouse, a tea set and a bicycle for TaKayla.

But there isn’t much money. Clay says that she and TaKayla get by on less than $700 a month.

Clay washes clothes in her bathtub to save money.

When she buys snacks for her daughter, Clay said she shares them with children in other apartments.

Sometimes Clay picks up clothes from Goodwill and gives them to neighborhood kids in need.

As for her own needs — and those of her daughter and son — she isn’t sure how she will cope.

“Poverty,” Clay said, “is nothing to play with. ... Giving up is not an option.”

This story was originally published November 28, 2017 at 3:58 PM with the headline "‘Poverty is nothing to play with,’ says Macon woman left jobless by illness."