Today's guest post is written by Kate Croston, a freelance writer, who holds a bachelors degree in Journalism and Mass Communication. She writes guest posts for different sites and loves contributing home internet service related topics. Questions or comments can be sent to:  katecroston.croston09 @ gmail.com.

You don’t always have to help groups when you volunteer. Sometimes it is enough to help just one person at a time. My grandmother is a strong woman. She always has been and hopefully always will be. She’s a widow, but she doesn’t let that slow her down.

Her friend, Carol, however, is not as blessed. My grandmother and Carol have been friends since they were fifteen years old. They got their first job together, married Navy men the same year, and started having children at the same time. However, once the kids had gotten a little older, their lives grew apart.

Grandma went to Florida; to find a better school for her youngest, deaf, son. Carol went to California. She’d always dreamed of being a professional singer, and when her husband’s career took her to sunny Los Angeles, she saw an opportunity. She sang with Frank Sinatra, joked with Bob Newhart, and was the bell of the ball.

Until her husband left her. Now, alone with three kids, she had to give up her dream and find a real, nine to five job. But with little formal education, there was not much out there. Eventually eking out a living as a secretary, Carol raised her three kids and remarried.

Alas, this ray of hope was not to last. Just a few years later she was again alone. Her youngest son had died tragically, her daughter had married and moved out of the country, and her eldest son was in and out of rehab. Where was she to go?

She’d kept in touch with my grandmother over the years, so when the chips were down, she knew there was one person she could count on to be there for her. And that’s how I met Carol. She was living out of her car, all her possessions either in her trunk or in a storage container. She couldn’t find a job at her age, and her Social Security check was woefully tiny. What was she to do?

Of course, my grandmother would have let her live with her, but there was no room. So, what to do? Unable to offer any advice, Grandma came to me.

Well, I had never dealt with this sort of thing before. How do you find someone a place to live that they can afford on social security alone? I defaulted to my one hope: the internet. Thankfully, there were resources out there that informed me of apartments created just for the elderly, ones which the rent was based on their income, rather than the area they lived.

Finding an open apartment was the hard part. After that, everything else just fell into place. The apartment had a moving service, offered cable TV as part of the rent, and even made sure meals were provided once a day.

Today, Carol no longer lives out of her car. She has a nice apartment, friends to talk to, and a quiet place to live that she can afford. All it took was a little research, some time, and the willingness to help someone in need.