Mary Cate Jones can finally rest easy in the home she built with her late husband 56 years ago.
For the past two months, the 78-year-old widow has been heartbroken, packing up her Strawberry Plains, Tenn., house that had been foreclosed on, ABC News reports.
After Jones's mortgage was sold a number of times, she wasn’t sure where she was supposed to send her payments and she fell behind on her bills. She then learned via a local paper that the deed for her house had been sold and she would need $72,000 to avoid eviction.
"Lord have mercy, I didn't know what was going on," she told ABC News.
That’s when generous donors -- some close friends, others complete strangers –- stepped up to help the lifelong Tennessee resident. According to ABC News, more than 500 people contributed to Jones's cause, including one anonymous donor who gave her $15,000.
PHOTOS of Mary Cate Jones, by Michael Patrick/NEWS SENTINEL. Story continues below.
Mary Cate Jones
“It’s just great how people have been so good and gracious to us. I’m thankful to each one,” Jones told knoxnews.com. “I hope I can sometime speak to them because there are some that I really don’t know.”
She told the website that her first order of business will be to hang back up the needlepoint works her sister made for her through the years.
Jones isn’t the only senior out there getting help holding onto her home.
Back in September, 101-year-old Texana Hollis was evicted from her Detroit home. Her son had failed to pay property taxes to a reverse mortgage and the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development foreclosed on the house, the Associated Press reported. HUD soon after said Hollis could return, but then deemed the residence too unsanitary and unsafe for her to live in.
To keep Hollis off of the streets, author Mitch Albom and his charity S.A.Y. Detroit bought the home from HUD and paid to fix it up.
"It's so wonderful to be home again," Hollis told the Detroit Free Press in April. "The house looks so beautiful, and I thank the Lord. God is good."