Regina Guillen, a volunteer at Crossroads Rhode Island, sorts donated clothing. The United Way’s hot line has its quarters in Crossroads’ building in Providence.

The Providence Journal / Mary Murphy

PROVIDENCE — Somewhere in Rhode Island, there was a young mother so desperate that she wanted to die.

Her husband had walked out on her and their two young children. Her income wasn’t enough. She saw no way out.

One morning as she packed a sandwich into her 7-year-old’s backpack, she found a bookmark advertising the Rhode Island 211 hot line. Her child’s school had given the bookmarks out to students in hopes of reaching families who need help.

She called the number. On the phone with the 211 call specialist, the mother sobbed, saying that she was thinking about killing herself, maybe even her two children, and that they’d all be better off dead.

The specialist alerted her two coworkers in the call center, in the west wing of Crossroads Rhode Island, and the three worked to help the tearful woman. They called 911, the Samaritans, and the National Suicide Hotline and stayed on the line with her. When the mother disclosed her financial problems, they found places to help her — a credit counseling agency, a community action program — and urged her to contact her bank about making accommodations on her mortgage.

When the 211 specialists followed up with the woman two days later, she told them she had abandoned thoughts of suicide. She had called the places to which they had referred her for financial help. She said she was grateful someone had listened to her that morning.

“I feel like we saved her life,” said the Rhode Island 211 hot line director, Cristina Amedeo, who recalled the episode on Friday.

Today, Feb. 11 — 2/11 — representatives of the United Way of Rhode Island are visiting colleges, senior centers, hospitals, supermarkets, and agencies throughout Rhode Island in a campaign to let people know that the 211 call center is here to help — and to listen.

The seven-month-old center handles calls at all hours, every day, with people trained to handle all kinds of questions and concerns, with referrals to social services, government agencies and other providers. The service is multilingual and confidential.

Some calls are as routine as helping an elderly person find a place to volunteer. Some are as heartbreaking as a young woman faced with planning her mother’s funeral. Some are as gripping as a person anxious about how gambling debts are crippling his family.

On the other end are the call specialists, armed with directories, computers, knowledge of a multitude of help programs, and the ability to unravel a stranger’s problems.

“You’re just really listening. It’s the most important thing you can do,” said Tony Medeiros, one of the 211 call specialists. “They’re going through so much. You just ask gentle, probing questions to find out what’s going on.”

The 211 hot line is underwritten by a half-million-dollar annual commitment from the United Way and supported by a $360,000 grant from the Hasbro Children’s Fund. The project has also received money from the state Office of Health and Human Services and a grant from the Providence-based TriMix Foundation.

Since a decade ago, the United Way of Rhode Island and Crossroads Rhode Island (formerly Travelers Aid) had talked about establishing a 211 hot line for Rhode Island, said Hank Sennott, United Way public relations director. The 211 service began in Atlanta in 1997 and now covers all or part of 41 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. Proof of its versatility was clear after Hurricane Katrina, when 700,000 callers in the Gulf Coast used 211 to get help. The Rhode Island 211 was launched on June 1, 2007, with the expectation of as many as 90,000 calls in the first year.

That turned out to be a substantial underestimation. The call center has already had 100,000 calls and e-mails to its Web site ( www.211RI.org) over the last seven months; more than 30,000 calls came from Providence. Overall, the calls and e-mails have risen each month, from 3,492 in June to 18,789 in December.

Most of the callers have numerous issues — food, shelter, utility shutoffs. Some are being abused. Some are sick and have no health insurance. Some are losing their homes. Some have stopped taking their medication so they can buy food. Some aren’t eating so they can pay for heat.

All are calling because they don’t know what else to do.

“They’re embarrassed, they’re ashamed. They never thought they’d be calling for help,” Amedeo said. “But one thing went wrong, and then two things went wrong. …”

The hot line has become a social barometer of what’s going on in Rhode Island.

Last August, a single mother of two called because state cuts in daycare assistance meant that she no longer qualified for subsidized daycare. Eligibility was narrowed from 225 percent of the federal poverty level, to 180 percent. To qualify for subsidized daycare, a single parent with two children can now earn no more than $30,906 a year — down from $38,633.

The caller didn’t want to quit her job and go on public assistance. The specialist figured out that the woman could qualify for subsidized daycare if she cut her workweek by a half-hour. That was also enough to qualify the caller for federal food stamps and make up for her loss in income.

The 211 center saw the wave of foreclosures a few months ago, as hundreds of people called about losing their homes and apartments. The United Way contacted Rhode Island Housing, which established the Help Center last November to assist homeowners in financial trouble.

The cold winter weather brought many calls from people struggling to heat their homes, but the state was running out of federalmoney in the Low Income Energy Assistance Program. The United Way was preparing to free up grant money for heating assistance last month when the Bush Administration released more money for the program.

Lately, hundreds of calls have been coming in from people who’ve lost their dental insurance, Amedeo said. One man e-mailed about a toothache that had kept him awake all night. Medicine dulled the pain, Amedeo said, but he couldn’t afford to get the tooth pulled. The United Way is looking into ways to help.

The calls are a reflection of the quiet desperation of the lives of people — those who whisper in calls from work, the parents calling when their children have gone off to school, those who call in the early morning hours, sounding as if they’d been awake all night, wrestling alone with their fears.

“You never know what the call will be until you pick it up,” Medeiros said.

The United Way 211 information locations today will be at the Women & Infant’s Hospital cafeteria from 11:50 to 12:40 p.m., at the Community College of Rhode Island in Warwick from 9:10 to 10 a.m., at the Hasbro Inc. employee cafeteria from 11:50 a.m. to 12:40 p.m., at the DMV in Pawtucket from 8:30 to 9:20 a.m., at Progreso Latino in Central Falls from 9:30 to 10:20 a.m., Thundermist Health Center from 10:40 to 11:30 a.m., Mancini Senior Center in North Providence from 10:40 to 11:30 a.m., Cranston Senior Center from 11:50 a.m. to 12:40 p.m., Newport Grand, 11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m., Franklin Court Independent Living, in Bristo,l from 10 to 10:50 a.m., Bryant University from 3:10 to 4 p.m., Shaw’s Supermarket in Westerly from 3:30 to 4:20 p.m., and Thundermist Health Center in Wakefield from 11:30 a.m. to 12:20 p.m.211 Major Needs

Source: United Way 211 in Rhode Island

amilkovi@projo.com