CHICAGO (CBS) — A donation can go toward helping people like a woman who fled an abusive relationship and has been receiving housing, clothes and counseling from the Salvation Army.

Now, she is about to be independent again.

It’s a view of the Salvation Army that is invisible to most people.

LISTEN: WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser Reports

“I had my head pushed really hard into a wall,” the woman told WBBM Newsradio’s Mike Krauser.

The woman, who wanted to remain anonymous, is living at a Salvation Army shelter. She’s here with her three kids, hundreds of miles from home. She’s basically on the run from a man who has stalked her.

“It feels like it’s not real,” she said. “It seems like I am going to wake up from this.”

She came to Chicago to stay with a cousin, but the cousin lost her job and apartment.

Now she’s here at the shelter.

“My oldest daughter, she lashed out with anger,” the woman said. “We have all these emotional issues at one time.”

But she’s remaining positive, and going to school, looking for work.

Her kids are in a good school, too.

“Please donate to the Salvation Army,” she said. “They do such great things here. They help you.”