My fundraiser started as a way for me to make money and help out my community. I’ve had a rough life. I’ve relied on the government for assistance for the last 7-8 years now. My favorite experience with accepting help, was also the darkest moment of my life. During that time I lived in a battered woman’s shelter, Eva’s Place, for a couple months. The support system those ladies formed for each and every one of us made me realize that it’s okay to lean on someone other than myself. That it’s okay to “use the system”, to lean on the government for food stamps and health insurance, because that’s what it’s there for. So, with my fundraiser, I not only want to give back to my very small community for helping me through every single one of my "rock bottoms", but I also want to prevent what happened to me, from happening to at least one other person.
I first got the idea right before I was evicted from my house a little over a year ago, and everything has just been a downhill slide from there. I've been through a lot this year. I found an amazing new house, but the state fell though on that. I soon found another amazing newish house, and then the owner fell through on that one. I ended up almost losing the chance to be in this housing program that I’m in. After everything that the ladies at Eva’s Place helped me with and showed me what to sign up for. I mean to even be considered for the program you have to be certifiably homeless. Which if you haven’t read my fundraiser, or all 22 pages. Then you probably don't know... Nah! I’ll give you a break! Haha! You have to either be living in a homeless shelter, or you have to have a police report saying you’re living out of your car.
Anyways, the ladies at Eva’s Place know what they’re doing. They know how to help those who really want to help themselves but they're just so lost. I was lost. I’m still lost. I just know that this is the path I have to follow. I'm tired of fighting to merely survive. I want to better myself and my community because the path that I now see my children on has a very scary ending… You see, I live in a very rural area. Fields and woods as far as you can see. There literally isn't anything for kids to do around here other than work on a farm or play on their phones, and they don’t want to work because kids these days feel so entitled to everything. The world owes them. I’m not sure why they feel this way, but I have a theory!
Marlette Elementary, the school that my children attend, had to cut the art program this year because of all the educational budget cuts in Michigan. Do you know everything that a child in Elementary school benefits from an hour a week of Visual Arts? There are studies and facts and I mean it doesn’t take that long to find them, I just googled. Through the art process, Kindergarten students plan and create using their own personal experiences, while they’re expressing independent thoughts and individual ideas. They participate in discussions of the aspects of environment, family, and home in the creation of art, and they also learn that art can be created for self-expression and/or fun.
Eighth graders use their skills, knowledge, and feelings to create art. They effectively identify, design, and solve creative problems, they develop and apply critical thinking strategies, and they collaborate, communicate, and work with others to create new ideas. They also independently initiate new ideas employing inventiveness and innovation, and they’re consistently demonstrating reflective thinking practices when identifying, designing, and solving creative problems. They’re able to recognize and describe personal, family, and community connections with artworks, and they are able to demonstrate an understanding of their place in the visual world and develop an appreciation of how they are part of a GLOBAL SOCIETY.*
Oh geez it looks like I’m right again! Good thing I pushed to bring the art back to Marlette's Elementary School. Which is such a great story in its own… The past couple months I’ve been volunteering for my daughter’s 5th grade teacher and grading paperwork in the library. 90% of the time, as I’m walking into the school, my son who is in 1st grade, is walking into the library. So not only do I get to check and make sure my daughter with severe ADHD, borderline Autism, is getting enough sleep to be able to focus long enough to finish reading the question on the test… But, I also get to give my son a huge hug! AND most of the time he’s so excited to see me he even lets me cuddle him for a good 5 minutes before he catches a glimpse of his friends snickering and has to go back to his classroom. It breaks my heart. Every. Single. Time.
Luckily for me, a couple months ago when I first started volunteering to check papers, my daughters teacher, who was also my teacher back in the day, and also my brothers and sisters teacher, (oh yeah, I’m the oldest of 5 ;) she made a comment about how I’d make a great art teacher. I agreed! I never really thought of it. I’ve had numerous careers and they’ve all kind of landed in my lap unintentionally. I’ve dropped out of college three times, yet I’ve had so many different types of careers and different experience in almost every field, that I’m pretty sure I don’t even need to go to school. I mean I want to. Psychology major. Heck yes! But… I don’t think it’s on this path just quite yet.
Anyways! My daughter’s teacher told me I’d be a great art teacher, after I had been complaining about never being able to understand how some people just don’t realize exactly how important visual arts are to those tiny developing minds and little people creating their own unique personalities. That’s where anger comes from. That’s where being misunderstood comes from. That’s where trying to “fit in”, to be “cool” and “accepted” comes from. No creativity. No imagination. No art.
However, because of my recent custody battle being very similar to some of the war stories I've heard from a Vietnam Veteran, I decided to keep my focus on my kids and off my current jobless scenario. Seriously... I've turned down three jobs, two were at pretty decent radio stations, one was in Virginia Beach, and the other one was in Kansas City, I think. I don’t really care, because the ONLY one that I really regret, is the job opportunity I turned down in Brooklyn, NY. Do you watch The HBO show Girls that's written, directed, and starred by the brilliant Lena Dunham? What about Brooklyn nine-nine? Either way... Watch them both! They're amazing and Brooklyn is the one place I'd like to be other than here! So I talked to the guy about the job for a half hour at least. As soon as he said it’s in Brooklyn I started jumping up and down!
I knew it was a sign. I told him I didn’t think I could make it in to the interview the next morning, (no private jet, yet) and he told me that whenever I’m in Brooklyn, to get ahold of him because I’ve got a job there waiting. I’ve never even been to New York before, but I just know I could walk down the streets and feel at home, and home is a hard place to think about. Especially when you’ve just lost your dream job, because of a jealous sales girl who couldn’t relate to anyone other than her reflection, and both of your children, all within two weeks from each other.
I stopped feeling sorry for myself, and somehow found the strength to keep fighting for my kids, I may have lost full physical custody of both of them, but I have proof as to not only how badly I was screwed over, but how lazy they’ve gotten at the Sanilac County Friend of the Court office, and I’m pretty sure the Department of Human Services is in on it too… Money? I don’t know, but what I do know is that with as many mistakes as they've made, I’m definitely not the first person to be manipulated into the trap the referee and lawyer had set up for me to walk right into. It didn’t matter what I said. I would have lost. Even with a lawyer.
So, am I asking for fundraising for legal fee’s? No. I am not. I actually already tried that a few times earlier this year. I’m solely using this fundraiser to get my non-profit eBay business up and running because one day, it’ll be an after school program for underprivileged kids, just like the job offer that still stands in Brooklyn.
So I guess my fundraiser actually isn’t a sob story…
It’s not a cry for help!
It’s a battle cry!
I am woman...
Hear me ROAR!! ;D
Tis the season for empty pockets
