The sky was heavy with clouds as senior Noel Villanueva rolled out the trash. Rain poured, heavier and heavier, rain falling sideways.

A pop, then crash. sparks flew in all directions and a tree crashed through his Mobile home.

His family ran out of the house, his mom yelling: “Get in the car.” The next thing Villanueva knew, they were at his aunt’s house.   They had spent a week at their aunt’s waiting for the storm to clear up.

“We slept at my aunt’s house for a long time,” Villanueva said. “We used her spare couch and huddled there for a bit. It was a little embarrassing, spending night after night on the couch. The only thing you think is, ‘Man, can’t believe I’m on a couch.’”

It was a tropical storm that ran through Texas,   in June of 2024, that sent a tree through Villanueva’s house. Since then, Villanueva and his family had to work in order to pay off damages to the house. Villanueva started working two jobs, His family business, JV Landscaping, and McDonald’s. He worked every week of summer on peoples lawns, while spending the weekends as a cashier.

“It got tiring, sad, but honestly not too bad,” Villanueva said. “It got old after a while, my legs started to hurt.”

The leg pain was the least of their issues, using too much equipment and lack of documentation slowly made the business suffer until they had to eventually sell their business.

“We had one team of inexperienced people, including myself and my brother; we’re not good at it,” Villanueva said. “We didn’t do things fast enough. We used too much gas and didn’t level everything. Some things were done for free. Some things were not done at all. Other people quit.”

With only one job, he was forced to put more hours into McDonald’s to provide for their home. Working late hours to get money, majority at the cash register, where Villanueva faced countless degrading interactions

“If they go through the drive through, people will treat you like you’re a machine,” Villanueva said. “There’s no faith. They’ll scream at you, or they’ll cut in line. they’ll be screeching about something when they can see 30 other people to help.”

He spends most weekends working, only taking five minute lunch breaks in order to cram in as much hours possible. Despite this, Villanueva feels that this isn’t enough, and wants to get a better paying job without working absurd hours.

“If I had some sort of vehicle, some sort of way to get around in not only a physical way to, you know, move, like mentally, that’s freedom. I can go wherever I want and just do stuff. If I had that freedom to go anywhere, then I can get a better job, and there’s progress in it.”

They spent four months working on the house, getting it to a point of selling it off to Villanueva’s uncle to fix it, using the money to help fund a new mobile home. Beyond this point, things looked up for Villanueva. The new home had more space, so much so that Villanueva received his own bedroom. As his job lowered the work hours, he funneled his new found time into himself.

“Stability is coming back,” Villanueva said. “I have a house now, a new one, my mom has a boyfriend now, I’m working on my license to get a car, applying to colleges, big changes, it feels nice, like you’re getting somewhere in life. You grow together stronger with the stress we all go through. There’s big changes, but it feels good.”