She was homeless and living in a grocery's parking lot. Then the store hired her.

LaShenda Williams woke up in a grocery store parking lot last year after another restless night in her car. On the window of the supermarket, she spotted a new flier.

The East Nashville, Tenn., Kroger store where she had been living in her car for almost a year was advertising a job fair. Williams, 46, who has a learning disability and has difficulty reading or writing — and also had been addicted to drugs — saw meaning in the flier. It was as if there was a sign within the sign, she said.

Williams went inside the store, as she did every day, to say hello to the employees. But this time, she gathered her courage and asked the hiring manager: "Maybe I could work here one day. You got room for me?' "

The manager, Jacqueline Vandal, said she'd help Williams fill out the application.

Vandal helped her answer all of the questions on her application and submit it. When a prompt came up, informing Williams that she'd successfully applied, Vandal immediately gave her the good news: "You're hired."

"I couldn't believe it — I hugged her and cried," said Williams, who has been homeless off and on in Nashville for several years. "It was overwhelming. Somebody gave me a chance."

Vandal, 56, said Williams' persistence in filling out the application tipped the scales in her favor.

"I didn't know at the time that she was living in her car," she added. "I just knew she was struggling."

Williams' turn of hard work and good fortune might have ended there. But then in May, after working for five months as a self-checkout associate, Williams saved enough money to get a small place of her own.

Co-workers and customers rallied to collect household items for her one-bedroom apartment, said Williams, and after her story was featured on Kroger's website and in Nashville's Tennessean, offers of help poured in.

When Verlenteez Williams (no relation to LaShenda Williams) learned that LaShenda was having trouble furnishing her new place, he posted on the East Nashville private Facebook group page, asking for help. He received more than 200 responses, he said, with people offering everything from living room furniture to kitchen appliances.

Verlenteez Williams, who runs a food prep and catering company in Nashville, said he wasn't surprised that people were eager to step up.

Originally from Alabama, she moved to Nashville when she was 19 and became addicted to crack cocaine, she said.

"I walk with a limp because I have cerebral palsy, and I had a tough time getting hired anywhere, so I just did odd jobs like housecleaning," Williams said.

It was late 2018 when Williams decided to park her 2015 Kia Forte in the Kroger parking lot.

"It was open 24 hours and the lot was always lit up at night," she said. "I figured I'd be safe there."

Now that she's working from 7:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. five days a week, Williams said, she sometimes pauses when she climbs into her car at the end of the day to drive home.