From Hidden Brain Media, I'm Shankar Vedanthim. This is my unsung hero, stories where one person reached

out to help another in a time of need.

I don't know the name of my unsung hero.

And here she was trying to encourage me

that it was going to be all right.

Thank you.

You will forever be my unsung hero.

Today's story comes from River Adams.

In 1991, at the age of 19, River and their family came to the

U.S. as Jewish refugees from the Soviet Union. The family received a small amount of support

from welfare and food stamps, but it wasn't nearly enough to survive on.

So River and their older sister tried to apply for jobs, but neither spoke much English.

For the first several months, no one would hire us because, well, we couldn't pass an interview.

We didn't even understand the simple questions the employers were asking.

So the four of us were always hungry.

Our diet consisted almost entirely of macaroni with ketchup, discounted managers special bananas,

you know the ones that had turned black and the cheapest cereal we could find which was fruit loops. But you know still

there was never enough of these foods either. Then in the summer of 91, my sister and I were hired to work at Roy Rogers. It was a fast food chain that was very common then and they specialized in fried chicken.

So we were hired part time to bread the chicken and mob the floors and the manager who hired us,

he did us a kindness just by giving us the job, because we were still, you know, really not with it, and we were grateful.

And all I remember about this man is that his name was Ed.

So the work was hard, but being hungry and surrounded by all this food was harder. We couldn't afford any of it.

...