This is an IHeart podcast.

Guaranteed Human.

This is our American stories, and now it's time for our Opportunity America series that's sponsored by Coke Industries.

Today, we hear the story of Gwen Boyd Willis and how Coke Industries helped her get a second chance.

Here's Robbie with the story.

Gwen Boyd Willis was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia.

My mother, named was Gwendolyn Mitchell, and my father named was Ernest Boyd.

And I lost my father at five years old.

He got killed in an automobile accident.

So I was raised in a single parent house.

Though life had started out a little harder than it does for most,

Gwen found that with a little hard work, she would find success.

I was an All-American and basketball.

I was a state champion in track and field.

I had scholarship office all over, but I wasn't able to go because my mother was sickly.

So I had to stay home and take care of her.

And I worked at University of West Georgia College

as an assistant shift to about 2005.

That's when I got in trouble.

I went to the ATM machine one night with a friend of mine.

And when I walked up to the ATM machine and said,

would you like another transaction?

...