President Donald J.Trump's name is printed on a stimulus check issued by the IRS to help combat the adverse economic effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, Thursday, April 23, 2020, in San Antonio. According to the Treasury Department, it marks the first time a president's name has appeared on any IRS payments, whether refund checks or other stimulus checks that have been mailed during past economic crises.

Brody Whited has always been a planner.

“That’s my thing,” joked Whited, a 22-year-old senior at Slippery Rock University. “It finally paid off.”

Whited has been one of the lucky ones — and one of the few of her age to receive the Coronavirus Tax Relief and Economic Impact Payment, better known as the stimulus check, from the federal government.

The Karns City High School graduate worked part-time as a waitress, filed a tax return in 2018 and is not claimed as a dependent by her parents.

That made her eligible for the $1,200 stimulus payment, which she received April 15.

The restaurant where she worked in Grove City closed not long after Gov. Tom Wolf’s decree to shut down all non-essential business.

Whited saw the writing on the wall and also applied for unemployment benefits before the avalanche of claims.

But her stimulus check helped her in myriad of ways.

“It saved my butt,” she said.

This is an excerpt from a larger article that appeared in Sunday’s Butler Eagle. To read about how other residents are using their stimulus checks as well as the residents who are falling through the cracks.