Sometimes, the greatest purpose in life is born from the places we once prayed to escape. My story began in the projects of Brooklyn, NY, where Glennis and I met at around twelve years old, growing up in an environment where survival often came before dreams. But even as a child, I quietly knew something different: the neighborhood I grew up in could be part of my story without being the ending.
I searched for something better — enrolling myself in after-school programs and finding places where I could learn, grow, and stay busy. Those programs gave me something incredibly important: hope and exposure to another possibility.
Life would not be easy. At 17, I became pregnant and became a mother shortly after turning 18, eventually finding myself living in a shelter. Instead of giving up, I kept going. I learned computer skills, worked, went to school, and completed a hospital internship in medical billing that launched my professional career. I became a mother of four by the age of 27 — and step by step began creating the life I once could only imagine.
My career took me from accounting to MTV, to eleven years at FedEx, to Corrections, and eventually to military service. But no matter how much my life changed, I never forgot where I came from: the young people without the same opportunities, the after-school programs that gave me somewhere to go, and friends in foster care carrying wounds no child should have to endure. I kept asking one question — “What happens to the children who don’t have someone to show them another way?” That question became a calling.
Years later, Glennis and I were no longer two children trying to find our way through the neighborhood. We were adults with a shared vision. Instead of running from where we came from, we decided to use what we learned there to help build something better. This nonprofit was born from that vision.
“You are not your zip code. You are not your circumstances. You are not your mistakes. Your beginning does not determine your ending.”