In 2024, my partner and I both lost our jobs unexpectedly. It was a very uncertain period for us, but the scariest part was what it meant for our daughter. She has dyslexia and severe ADHD, and after struggling in the public school system, we enrolled her in a private school that specifically met her learning needs.
For students like our daughter, the Department of Education typically reimburses tuition, which can run upwards of $70,000, but that process takes one to two years. In the meantime, families like ours are required to pay out of pocket—putting down a deposit for the current year, making monthly payments, and sometimes even facing the next year’s deposit before we’ve been reimbursed by the DOE.
Suddenly, with no stable income for part of the year, we were drowning—not only in tuition payments but also in our basic living expenses. I remember staring at the numbers, wondering if I’d have to put my daughter’s $8,000 deposit on a credit card just to keep her in school. The interest alone could have wrecked us. I was desperate when I mentioned my fears to the school, and that’s when I learned about the Hebrew Free Loan Society’s Special Education Bridge Loan.
I applied immediately, and within a short period of time, we were approved for an interest-free loan to cover tuition while we waited for reimbursement. The relief was overwhelming. Without it, our daughter might have lost her spot in the only school that has ever worked for her.
When she was in second grade, she couldn’t even read the word “cat.” Now, in eleventh grade, she’s reading novels beyond her grade level. Without HFLS, we would have faced crushing debt—or worse, she might have been forced out of the education that transformed her life. HFLS kept our family afloat when we needed it most.
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