Do you know someone who is living on less than a thousand dollars a month?

I knew a family like that in Tennessee. The young husband had had a debilitating stroke, the wife worked as a school custodian, and they had one son in middle school. This last summer when the mother had to be off work to have surgery, several of us pitched in and paid their electric bill. We felt it was an appropriate gesture. Is there some way you could help these people you know out, too?