Aubern Marshall was running errands this summer when the sudden sputtering of her car filled her with a sense of dread.

Already the 35-year-old Sarasota woman had poured nearly $2,000 into the vehicle to fix a broken radiator and blown cylinder. Another batch of cylinders was likely to cost another grand.

As it was, her budget had been extremely tight.

With food costs soaring for thousands of local households this year , Aubern – a single mother of four sons under the age of 17 – found her grocery bills shooting through the roof.

“We’re going to have to start gardening and raising chickens,” she would joke with the boys.

But with back-to-back car repairs, the situation had become dire. Despite working a well-paying job, Aubern was falling dangerously behind on the rent.

And now her

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