"You'll find a reason to love, to be alive and live" - One participant's journey of hope
Read the story below as Bryan Lund, Project Legacy tutor, Legacy Academy volunteer and facilitator of the Writer’s Workshop, shares the journey of one Project Legacy participant in her own words. This story will remain anonymous and is shared with permission.
“It's hard to get a good grasp on time when a lot of changes are happening - lots of good changes.
When I first met Karen, I was honestly really scared, because I had never met this lady before in my life, I had never been in a program like this before. It just kind of came out of nowhere; it almost seemed too good to be true at a point. That's why I was a little bit hesitant about it. But then we kept talking more and meeting more.
I got involved through Alex, and she was the one who kind of helped calm me down, like, “It's okay, you can just try this out. You don't have to stick with it for sure. Just try. Go to these meetings and let me know how it feels.”
We kept going to more and more meetings, and I started feeling more safe, and able to share and connect.
I wanted to be a part of the program when I realized that this is the best thing that ever happened to me. Not a lot of great things happen in my life, so that's why I was not sure Project Legacy was for me. I didn't want to mess it up. I'm so used to messing a lot of things up. It’s connected to a lot of people that I really care a lot about; it feels more like a family, and you don't want to disappoint your family. That's where taking Project Legacy seriously comes in; accomplishing my goals, working on everything that I need to be working on, between work, myself, and home life.
When I first joined, I didn't have career goals in mind. I didn't look forward to the next week, much less, like, the next day. Now that I'm in Project Legacy, going to school, I have a changing career plan that I'm working towards. I’m creating goals for myself, and not just long term goals that feel hard to obtain, but short term goals, easier to achieve. It makes progress easier.
A main goal of mine is to go to group, we have them every Wednesday. It’s a place to be honest and actually share instead of not sharing. I kind of have a problem with speaking, especially when it's a lot of people that I don't know. So that was a hard thing to be able to share. But once I started going more, it just came naturally and I started to look forward to it.
I'm working on my own personal, emotional, physical, and mental health as well. The way that I talk about myself and think about myself is much more positive now. The way I talk [to about] others is much more positive. And try to not always worry about the negative or be that Debbie Downer, already assuming something's gonna be bad.
Being around more positive people has, in turn, shaped me into a more positive person. I'm not necessarily walking around talking all day setting off my bad cloud energies at everyone. So that's nice.
Living in the house with everyone else, especially a baby in the house, is really helpful too, because I have to learn how to communicate clearly and not aggressively, because there's a baby in the house. You just really can't be upset when there's so many good things happening around you. You see everyone around you doing so much better. Looking forward to things, having goals, it just feels better. It feels great.
I never got to graduate high school because I was having a lot of family issues. The last time, I believe it was my senior year, I went to go to class and my homeroom teacher was like, my parents pulled me out of school. And I was 17 at this time, so I couldn’t re-enroll myself back in. After I stopped going to school, I mainly focused on working so that I could survive. Like get food to eat and stuff like that. So it wasn't really on my mind to go to school because I didn't have the time to worry about it. Now, I'm working on getting my GED and hopefully trying to start an EMS course shortly after that.
Project Legacy enrolled me in the Kaplan Academy, an online GED course. I've been doing that every single day. I should have my GED at the beginning of next month. So, yeah, I’m pretty excited about that. I really enjoy the act of learning again - sitting down and actually reading things. That's really nice to get my brain active again. I've never been good at math, so am kind of holding off on that section of the GED. I’m saving math for last.
I've always been interested in wanting to help people - for my whole life. Early on in my life, when I first turned 18, I worked at a music venue for a long time, it's probably my longest job. I did a lot of security and light health stuff there that made me think that I can do so much more if I had the proper and adequate training. It was almost scary though, because the place I worked at was not very safe at all. So I had to make sure that everything was going correctly and that the person that needed help got the correct help that they needed right away. I just knew that it was serious.
Then, with everything happening in Minneapolis [this summer], Alex and I went to the first couple protests. When they ended up getting really scary at the end, we were trying to help people, bring them to the aid stations and stuff like that. That's when I knew for sure that I just want to help people, no matter what it is.
I see myself being able to grow, too. The medical field is so huge, so I think that's a good spot to just put myself in the door. I don't see myself sitting at a desk all the time, different things all the time. Nothing's gonna be the same when you're on an EMT shift, that’s for sure.
Project Legacy has immensely helped my schooling by providing a laptop so I can go to our weekly meetings, do school, and look up new jobs. Right now, I’m in the middle of a transition phase trying to leave the service industry, and to something else while I get into the EMT stuff. They've helped by providing warm winter clothes so that I could get to work safely. Because sometimes I have to wait outside for a ride. And it gets pretty cold.
I'm working towards getting my driver’s license. I’ve had my permit since I was 15 or 16. Very awful. Trying to get to work is a nightmare when roads are bad. And it's something that I'm really trying to get before that. Project Legacy helped me by helping clear an old warrant I had. Now I'm able to actually go get my license safely and not worry about getting taken in when I go get it, which is a big reason why I held off on getting it. That was also a really big thing; Project Legacy helped me take care of my legal stuff, so now I can focus on school and work and just being a normal person and not having to worry all the time.
They provide groceries. I used to always have to choose between a ride home from work or getting some food today. And now I don't have to worry about that, because there's always food at home, which is good. That just really takes a lot of worries off my back. You shouldn’t have to choose between one important thing that you need, especially when we're caring for other animals, too.
It's nice to know that everything is taken care of. And to have them teaching us how to budget correctly so that we're not living above our means. I've never been really good with money before now; I did my taxes for the first time this year.
If people wanted to know, I just want to say, be open minded during this whole process. Change is scary. And change is hard. But it's definitely worth it. You're not going to see it right away, and you're not even going to feel that way probably for a couple months. But things will change and it will be so much better. And you'll find a reason to love to be alive and live.”