Jackie Gerstenberger has been a hard worker all her life, first stepping in to raise her six siblings, then working for a grocery store for 17 years, and then spending 14 years as a stay-at-home mom raising her adopted son.
When it came time to re-enter the workforce, Gerstenberger thought it would be simple. It wasn’t.
“I thought it would be easy because I never had a problem finding a job before,” she says, “but I didn’t have the skills. I started to feel horrible about myself and stupid. I felt broken and scared to death that I would let my family down.”