I know that this too shall pass

I was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan for 26 years and although I love my home, there was something that I wanted to do differently. I was a mentor/tutor for City Year of Detroit which is program under AmeriCorps, so I thought why don't I try to get in touch with AmeriCorps which is a great program to get into and plus the scholarship money is a big help as well. My search began in November of 2007 and when it was all said and done, I was on my way to St. Louis, Missouri in January of 2008 to work with South Grand Senior Ministries. Upon my arrival I was really nervous because I was told that I was going to have roommates and since I had never lived with anyone before, this was going to great to get to know different people so I thought. It wasn't until I had gotten to know them and the people at my job that I wasn't quite satisfied so I opted for another position in Binghamton, New York, which is where I currently reside, working with the Binghamton Neighborhood Assembly Project which is a community initiative started by Mayor Matt Ryan. And everything was going for a while until I began to notice that I was the only black person on the team, and that I was the only one there who didn't have a degree so automatically I began to get treated as if I didn't have any say since I didn't have proper qualifications. I also noticed that the two sides of town that I was given to be in charge of going to and passing out flyers for the community meetings that were held three times out of the month, were low to no income, drug infested, impoverished communities. They had bigger problems than the topics that were on the flyers and while I was getting the response and bringing them back to my team leaders and informing them that "we can't solve epidemics like these with middle to high class thinking" no on believed that that was the case. Over time I was almost done with the program and ended up having a medical emergency that took me out of the program which cost me the education grant. I ended being homeless and living in a shelter (which i'm currently in) and although I earned my CNA certification I began working at the nursing home for only a month and had to go back home to take care of a family situation. So now i'm back to square one but what I have been getting out of these situations are one thing.... This won't last forever... Sometimes we go through things so that we can help someone else out of it and that's why i'm no longer crying "why me" because why not me? We go through lifes twists and turns so we can get a better understanding and be aware of the things that are around us.