I am about to be 30 years old. Some of the many hardships I have faced throughout my life have been mental and physical abuse growing up in my household with my father and stepmother. Being bullied in Middle School because I was overweight/ ugly, according to the students, had a very negative and deep-rooted impact on Me. Growing up never knew my mother; I assumed these kids must be right about something because even my mom never stayed around for me. Eventually, I met my mom, only to have her introduce me to crystal meth. I guess she figured that would be an incredible bonding experience for us, so that was the beginning of my addiction started by my mom. I'm pretty sure you could guess the rest of my story. I ended up in and out of the juvenile hall. Not until I turned 18 and had my first son did I realize that I wanted to be someone who was loving and encouraging to my child since I never had that growing up, and I saw the damage it had done to me. To move forward from all my hardships, I've had to do a lot of acceptance. And I was holding myself accountable for the choices I made, which was not easy to do. I fought for many years until finally, I admitted my part in everything. Have you gone through hardships alone, and having to recover from them alone has affected my relationship by me not always reaching out for help since past experiences have shown me otherwise? Still, I am working on asking for help which is why I'm writing this essay because I'm asking for help financially so I continue to go to school. Facing hardships has made me resilient. Some of the work that I plan to do if I'm able to continue going to school due to my financial situation, intend to conduct trauma-informed youth mentoring. And showing Educators why it is important for them to know about social emotional learning and for them to actually practice it live in their classrooms which in return would help them have better management of their class relieve their stress/burn out and actually give the children a chance to establish quality bonds with them because that is how kids get a quality education by trusting the individual that is educating them if they feel that you truly have their best interest at heart I want to thank you for reading this short essay thank you

I am pursuing philanthropy. I am helping my coworker create and start a non-profit in Los Angeles, California, specializing in trauma-informed youth mentoring. We plan to make a difference in the world by going to Elementary to high school campuses, first training the administration and social-emotional learning and then establishing a classroom that all teachers and students will know is our classroom so they could drop in anytime they need to. Still, we believe in helping mend the relationship between Administration and students. This, in return, will help us with our future ensuring that it is a more positive one. We have all heard the saying that it takes a village to raise a child well. Still, it does take a town to raise a child successfully because no two parents or one parent can do it alone, and we as a society have made it a bad thing to have to ask for help which, in return, all we have seen is the negative from that people need help. Still, they don't want to ask for it because they're too scared they're going to get in trouble for it or get talked about when they're already trying to do the best that they can. We recognize that some students don't have the extra support that they need or even the essential support that they need at home, and that's where the schools should be coming in to step up and provide that for them. The only way we can do that, though, is through social and emotional learning because, so far, we haven't been doing that. A lot of kids get written off as bad kids, and the teachers don't even want to deal with them, which creates a big cycle. Those kids drop out, get into trouble, and eventually end up in prison, causing more trauma to their community and Families. We have the opportunity to change that, and we are eager and ready to go and try, so if you guys were to help me out and help me pay for my college without putting me in enormous debt, I would be more than grateful because you would be allowing me to continue to try and make this world better not only for me but everybody else in it as reasonably. The school-to-prison pipeline needs to stop. Our minority people have suffered enough through generations and so desperately need a change in the system regarding the school-to-prison pipeline.

I am currently serving my second year with Americorps. My first year; I spent it working with a nonprofit that focused on trauma-informed youth mentoring, which I ended up falling in love with and decided to help a co-worker fulfill a dream that he had of starting his nonprofit that also specialized in trauma-informed youth mentoring but welcoming all Races not only singling one. We believe that educating the students in social and emotional learning but also teaching the staff how to implement that in their school culture will significantly improve our student's chances of getting a complete and fulfilled education; right now, a lot of kids get left behind. For my second year with AmeriCorps, I am at a middle school where the dean has asked me to develop a curriculum to teach the staff and students about social and emotional learning. I am very grateful to this school administrator and taking the chance and allowing me to create a curriculum that she is eagerly waiting to introduce to her faculty and the students. Growing up, I had a lot of adverse childhood experiences that I never spoke to anybody about, and that caused me not to take full opportunity of school like I should have or could have, so now, being an adult, I would love to be able to have the chance to help School administrators fix the relationship between themselves and the student's school should be a safe place for students. I wish they had implemented the whole social-emotional learning when I was a student; that most likely would have changed my life drastically. A lot of Educators do not take into consideration what happens to students outside of school, which ultimately affects how they conduct themselves while in school. Now being an adult but at one time being one of the "bad kids" in school, I am very passionate about this opportunity to be able to help educators understand and Implement social-emotional learning in their classrooms as well as the students help them learn what social, emotional learning is and how to use it to better themselves so they could become whatever it is that they truly desire. I believe every child should have the opportunity to become what they want. I firmly believe in the same all children do well when they can. Also, the whole social-emotional learning movement would ultimately help the school-to-prison pipeline that has been established for many, many years; we need to give our citizens a real opportunity to make something of themselves. We can't do that with the current system. We have, so if you guys find me, this is what I plan to do after my education. Thank you.