Meet Our First Recipients: Stories of Hope
Behind every application is a story of perseverance. With permission, we're sharing the journeys of some of the people Zero Balance Fund has helped.
Numbers tell one kind of story. Faces and names tell another. Today we are proud to share the first group of recipients whose federal student loan balances we have helped pay down. Names have been shortened at each recipient's request.
Maria — Registered Nurse, Ohio
Maria graduated from nursing school in 2017 and went straight into the night shift at a regional hospital. Eight years later, her balance had barely moved. "Every paycheck," she told us, "felt like I was running on a treadmill." We paid $12,400 directly to her loan servicer — the exact amount needed to finish her standard repayment plan a full four years early.
I cried when I got the confirmation email. For the first time in a decade, I can plan past next month.
James — Legal Aid Attorney, Georgia
James chose legal aid over a private-firm job to help tenants facing eviction. That choice came with a $740 monthly payment on a $138,000 law school balance. Zero Balance Fund contributed $18,000 toward his PLUS loans, enough to lower his monthly payment by $210 and keep him in public interest work.
The Johnson Family — Indiana
Priya and Anwar Johnson had been saving for a down payment for six years when we funded a $9,600 disbursement that cleared Priya's undergraduate balance entirely. Six weeks later, they closed on their first home.
We had done the math a hundred times. Without that gift, we were still two years away.
By the numbers
Your gift, their future
Each of these stories was made possible by donors like you — giving $25, $100, or $5,000 at a time. Every dollar gets us one step closer to a world where the phrase "lifelong debt" is a history lesson.
Donate now to help the next cohort of recipients reach zero.
