In 1994, Kathy Cooks was reading the newspaper and came across an article about NEDCO's lease/purchase program. A single mother of 4 children, she had always dreamed of owning a home and helping her children go to college, but she just didn't know how to make it happen. She had maintained a steady job at the local university for many years but couldn't find an affordable home to buy. Participation in NEDCO's Threshold Homeownership Education and Counseling Program and Lease/Purchase Program seemed like the perfect opportunity to help her reach her goals of homeownership.

Through working with the Home Ownership Counselor, Kathy began to understand that the accumulated interest from her credit cards was putting her into debt and how to reduce that debt. She also learned how make a personal budget and begin to set savings goals for the first time in her life!

Kathy moved into a NEDCO home in 1995, at first leasing it while continuing to save and reduce her debt. She was so actively involved in her neighborhood from the beginning that she was elected a member of the NEDCO Board of Directors the same year that she moved into her home. She was committed to making homeownership a reality for her family and saved consistently every month until she was finally able to purchase her home in 1997. Today, Kathy continues to actively support NEDCO and is a very involved volunteer in her children's school district.