Did I help someone or get swindled?

So while I was at my local grocery store a woman came up to my car anxious and almost like she was crying. I was a little startled as I was in the car and was blocked in, so I opened the windows a little and asked her what was going on.

She responded by saying sorry, and that she needed some money as she was short due to the social security office being closed and her not having any money outside of that. She said other things like not being able to pay rent and needing to pick up her daughter in an hour from her dance class. At that point it sounded a little suspicious but she was really embarrassed and worried, so I decided to give her 5$ as I only had 20 and I needed the money for something the next day.

Looking back it at, I don't regret giving it to her as I believe I either helped someone in need or someone lied to me and that's on them. What I want to understand is if this interaction was normal and believable to other people? Some question I later had were, why did she need the money to pick up her daughter? We were kinda far from a local area where classes would be.