Growing up in the coastal town of Lubec,
Maine, there weren't a
whole lot of options for people to choose from. I
married while still in high school and had a child soon after graduation. By
the age of 30, I had been married and divorced twice and worked as a laborer
since the age of fifteen. In December of 1997, my life changed just as I was
feeling good about myself. I became injured and could no longer work. By
February of 1998 I was running out of money and had to find a way to support
my twelve-year-old daughter and myself. I turned to the TANF program to help
feed her but this was very degrading for me, it was not what I wanted. Then
someone asked me how I would feel about going back to school.
I had always wanted to go to college but
never thought it would happen. Having a child at nineteen kind of puts a
hold on your whole life. My injury has insured that I will never again do
the work that I had been doing previously so I thought, "It can't hurt
anything to try." That was the best thing that ever happened to me. All
my life the jobs I had were hard work paying anywhere from $10,000 to
$15,000 a year. Not much money to raise a child on but I was doing it.
School would change the way of life for my family.
On May 12, 2001, I graduated from the
University of Maine in Machias with an Associate of Science Degree, with
honors, in Administrative Management. Since graduation, I landed a job as a
Financial Services Coordinator in a small community nursing and residential
care facility. This has doubled the annual income that I was earning before
my accident. And not only that, my daughter, who is now 17 and a junior in
high school, is definitely going to college and maybe even graduate school.
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