The unfortunate mother, Shanon, and her loving family came upon some bad luck and found themselves out of a home and living in the woods out of their van. Per reports, the family had nothing left and had to struggle to survive day after day. Because the struggling family did not have a home of their own after falling upon hard times, the mother and her children would sometimes camp out behind a local Walmart location. They’d hide in the woods behind the store and make a camp for the night. The family would beg for food and look for leftovers wherever they could and would take turns sleeping on the hard ground and inside the family van.
“There was no light at the end of the tunnel,” Shanon told CBS News. Her life was an endless story of pain and suffering. But everything changed for Shanon and her family when two deputies, Officers Yee and Johnny, came upon the family while they were camped out behind the Walmart. Shanon feared that her life was going to get harder because she knew that cops were not often very forgiving of homeless people.
In the past, the unfortunate mother had never met a police officer who had treated her family with kindness. They were all gruff and short with her and urged her to do better than to sleep in a van behind a Walmart with her three children. However, Shanon was disrupted from making lunch for her three children when Deputies Yee and Johnny arrived. They found the family struggling to survive – but instead of punishing the mother for living out of her van behind a Walmart, they opened their hearts to the family and did something unexpected.
The deputies were horrified to see the mother and her children living the way they were. The children were starving and dirty and had clearly been denied basic necessities that other children take for granted. Instead of punishing her for being homeless, Deputies Yee and Le returned with a garbage bag full of donated items. They brought food, toys, and clothing back to the family so they could have more than what they had before. But that was not all the police officers did as a way to serve their community. By the time the officers met up with the family, she and her children had been living out of their van behind the Walmart for four months. Life was very hard for thefamily, and they needed a helping hand. Fortunately, the police officers were ready to offer their help. The officers helped the family get into a motel until they were able to transition to more permanent housing.
