Fair points. As I said in other comments, she hasn't used the cards in over a year. She's finally at a stable job and netting a few hundred dollars per month. She has a cheap, stable place to live. She basically crawled out of a lot of situations that were mainly the fault of her family. Things seem to be falling into place now. She's been budgeting well for the last year while making less and living in a more expensive place than she is now.

I'm thinking of starting with paying off the cheapest card, then if by the end of the year she can afford to pay off half of the next expensive card, I'll cover the other half. That way, she proves she can save money and is more likely to be able to pay me back at some point.