Gaston County community gives hurricane evacuee car

GASTON COUNTY, N.C. — Shatonya Nunnery lost everything twice, once during Hurricane Katrina and again during Hurricane Harvey.

Nunnery moved to Gaston County to start a new life. That proved to be a good move. Fellow citizens in the city raised enough money to buy her a refurbished car.

Nunnery hasn't had a car of her own since just before Hurricane Harvey.

"Why (do) I keep going through the storm?” Nunnery said. “But once I got here, I felt like I could see the sunshine and the rainbow."

She moved to Gaston County with her 5-year-old son after Hurricane Harvey destroyed her home in Houston. She had no home or car.

"I was a little hopeless in the beginning," Nunnery said.

They entered Family Promise, a sheltering program for families.

"Just everything that she has been through and yet, she is still around and she is still a survivor," program director Juliette Smith said.

State Farm wanted a new purpose for the once totaled Toyota, and workers at Gerber Collision believed they could revive it.

"Wherever you go, leave a little bit of goodness there," Marty Hancock, with Gerber Collision, said.

Nunnery is a cosmetologist who once gave free services to people with cancer.

"I never had anybody do this for me before," Nunnery said.

Nunnery just got her license to operate as a cosmetologist in North Carolina and she said she will need the car to advance her career.

Cox Media Group