I need advice for reaching out to a co-worker

My mom passed on her desire to help people to me. She used to bake dinners for people in the church whenever they fell on hard times and was always quick to offer whatever help they needed like house work or child care. I've always envied how easily she seemed to do this.

There's a woman at one of my jobs that I've felt the need to try to reach out to. Her husband is not working currently due to an injury, they have kids still living at home, but one of their sons was a runaway for a while, was finally found, and is now facing several felony charges. It's a really messy situation and she's been working multiple jobs just to keep up with their finances. She keeps coming in complaining about how far behind she is on house work or that she still needs to figure out what to do for supper, etc. But the thing is she also has one of those personalities that you know she doesn't want to be offered charity or be offered pity, which I can understand. But I don't want to just do nothing either.

I need advice on how to offer to help her out without coming across as offering her charity or feeling sorry for her. I know I'm more than able to help her and I just feel wrong doing nothing but I don't know how to offer her my help. My mom kind of gave me some advice on the matter but I was wondering if anyone else had any ideas of how best to approach this?

Well, if you like cooking, you could ask her if she would be willing to try out some of your culinary experiments on her family, and tell you what she thinks.....Like, make it sound like SHE would be doing YOU a favor.....the old reverse psychology trick!

That is tricly. If I get any bright ideas I will let you know

Remember though, you simply being there for her, listening might mean a lot to her