GREENSBORO, N.C. — Lori Frye doesn’t exactly consider herself a businesswoman but, she was doing well for herself. Frye has been cleaning houses for several years and had developed a nice client list.
“I had about 30 regular customers that would have me clean once a week or every other week,” Frye said.
Not long after the pandemic hit almost all those clients either stopped their service or cut the number of cleaning days. Frye says she now only has a handful of active clients and most are only having her clean once a month.
“Several told me they had to lay me off or let me go till the COVID lifted or things improved,” Frye said.
As we all know things did not improve as quickly as many hoped. Frye wasn’t sure what to do as the bills started to pile up.
Then on one afternoon she was watching News 2 and caught a segment we did with the Law School at Wake Forrest. The school is providing free legal assistance for people dealing with unemployment and pandemic assistance issues and claims.
“I wasn’t sure if I would qualify but they seemed to think I would,” Frye said.
A few days later Frye applied but it wasn’t as smooth as she hoped. There was a problem when she went to fill out the forms. Frye contacted DES but was still not able to get the help she needed to file the claim.
“It kept telling me there were issues, it does not deny my claim but says there are open issues,” said Frye.
Several months would go by before Frye would reach out to us at News 2. We contacted a representative at DES who assured us someone would investigate the claim and reach back out to Frye.
It only took a few days before DES was able to fix whatever the issue was. Frye received a phone call from someone at DES letting her know the issue was resolved. A couple of days later $3,000 was deposited into her bank account.
“I’d like to thank News 2, If I had not seen that segment I would be in a very bad and desperate situation at this moment,” Frye said.