Helping my community, and those in my community, has always been important to me. In 8th grade, I helped volunteer to start up an after-school group that catered to kids who felt alone and ostracized. I volunteered at our local community museum to set up displays and give people tours, as well as walk them through the genealogy room we offered. I've volunteered with a local food bank, brought clothing and toys to a pregnancy crisis center that tries to keep families together and keep mothers from feeling like abortion is the only option, and I've volunteered to serve food to those in need. Now that I'm a mother, a full-time student, and a full-time employee, my spare time to volunteer has taken a hit. However, I still try to spread good however I can. I instill in my son that not everyone is as lucky as we are--he will never know that we aren't well-off; we live paycheck to paycheck and we struggle A LOT--that not everyone has a home to come home to, a safe family that loves them, toys to play with, warm clothes and blankets, food... and that we should always do what we can to help people. The past couple of years, that has looked like creating Christmas cards for local nursing homes, donating toys in great condition to families who have lost everything in fires or other disasters, and volunteering to help others in our everyday life, whether that be holding a door or carrying in groceries for someone to any other act of service we can think of. As I continue my education, I plan on continuing to teach my son these lessons and doing what small things we can do daily. I work in a public library where I also have access to hundreds of patrons a day and, through my job, I plan to advocate for people who are voiceless or marginalized. I'm getting my degree and taking coursework in multicultural literature to learn how to make sure that voices that are different from mine are still represented, heard, and respected. I want to make sure that kids that don't look like my kid can still see themselves in a book. I want to make sure that people who are members of the LGBTQ community, kids who live differently, kids who are differently-abled, kids who worship differently, etc are all respected and represented and that everyone has access to something that feels like them.

Mom- You were a forest, full of life, until the machine came through and cut you down. Tree by tree, mulched and chipped away into someone unrecognizable. You were the ocean, serene and beautiful, until the moon came along and ruined your tides. Tsunamis raged and you struck, leaving destruction in your wake. You were a hug, warm and safe, until he found you, took you, and froze your heart. Day by day, the light left your eyes until they were gray and dull and you weren't safe anymore. But you enjoyed the machine for it made people feel sorry for you. The moon became your nightly friend, excusing your behavior because you couldn't help it. He was your crutch--wooden, splintered, and unsteady himself. You were given the keys to turn off the machine. You didn't. You could have weighed yourself down to minimize the moon's gravity. You didn't. You could have left him. You didn't. You didn't run from the things that hurt you but from those who tried to help, because they were the bad guys. Now you're gone and I wonder why I am how I am today.

In June of 2021, I put in an application to my local library. They were looking for a part-time worker in the children’s department to put books on the shelves after they were returned. Having left my full-time job in 2020 after Covid, and after hating being a delivery driver for local food delivery apps, I knew I had nothing to lose. I loved kids and I loved books. What could go wrong? The answer: nothing, apparently! I got the job and began in July of 2021. In February of 2022, I was hired full-time at my job. I had been working only six short months at my local library when one of our staff decided their life was calling them in a different direction, and because of that, a coveted full-time position became available. Despite having less experience than requested, and despite being on the job considerably less time than other applicants, I put my best foot forward and gave it a go. A few weeks later, I became the first part-timer to be hired over a full-time internal applicant at my position—an honor I felt I needed to live up to. Headfirst, I dove in to the position and have not stopped swimming. I fell in love with what I do, and it wasn’t until another coworker and I were discussing how we could make other moves within the company that I realized I would need a degree in Library Science if I ever wanted to do anything further with my career. An avid reader and self-proclaimed recluse in high school, I was made fun of a lot for my lack of engagement with much of the outside world. I played softball, but didn’t really fit in with the team, but I could sit for hours in the library, or at home, and read my books completely oblivious to the world. I obtained a degree in literature first, then a Master’s in creative writing, and after landing this dream job of working in the children’s department of the library, I’m pursuing my MLIS so that I can continue to do great things and to be a voice for those children who, like me, reside happily in book space. Working in the public library has also stoked my fire for serving my community in general. There are many things that go on behind the scenes, many books that get called into question, that I feel must be advocated for so that all members of our community feel welcome, seen, and represented. I can only do so much of that without a degree; however, with my degree, I will be able to help select books that can reach underrepresented people as well as gun for a position that will give me voting power on what books stay or go in our community. The drive I have to do big things has remained the same over the year, but what has changed is how much I seem to value myself now. My coworkers are amazingly supportive and constantly tell each other how worthy we are and how much we are appreciated in the workforce, and it has made me see myself as a valuable person with something to give. I know, with the degree I'm going for (and the scholarship to help pay for it), I can be so much more.

"...even if you hate her, can't stand her, even if she's ruining your life, there's something about her, some romance, some power. She's absolutely herself. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get to her. And when she dies, the world will be flat, too simple, reasonable, fair." These words were used to describe Adele August in "Anywhere But Here," the first novel by Mona Simpson. When I read those words, I cried. Many books up until that point in my life had intrigued me, had been a safe spot for me when I felt like I had nowhere to go, had been my comfort in times of sorrow. But this book--this book took every bit of grit that I had to read, because Mona somehow wrote my mother perfectly onto the page four years before my mom ever became a mother. My mom, Shannon, was the definition of a statistic. Small-town, Southern Baptist, big-haired girl in 1990 got pregnant out of 8th grade. She was turned away by the local high school because she would have been a bad influence on the other girls, though my father attended the same high school with no repercussions. In an instant, she became a single, unwed, teenage mother with no more than an 8th grade education. Our lives played out like the book in many ways: always chasing the big dream but never actually getting any closer to it, living in and out of hotels, house-hopping, charming anyone that we spoke to in order to get what we wanted. That's just how we lived, but only on the surface. There was so much more drama that unfolded behind the closed doors. Reading "Anywhere But Here" didn't do a lot to change the way that I saw my mom, nor the way that I saw our lives, but what it did do was transform the way I told our story. Although it is fiction, my personal story is not, and by reading this novel, I learned that I could write openly and honestly about things that others would question simply because of how outlandish they sounded. I changed my entire college track to English Literature with a minor in creative writing, and then pursued a Master's in Creative Writing with a concentration in creative nonfiction writing. I pursued writing my own memoir-esque story because of how much I loved the novel I had read years before, and now, years later, I work in a library and get to continue reading the book and others like it. It lead me to writers such as Dorothy Allison, Sue William-Silverman, Jeannette Walls... all writers who take their own stories and make them relatable and important. My mom died in 2011 when I was a freshman in college and only 20 years old. Her death was just as dramatic as her life had been, and just as she did in life, she spiraled everyone else down with her. Being able to read about parents like Adele August really made me see how I had been accepting things about my mother's spiraling world for years as normal, everyday things--because for us, they were--when everyone else saw the crazy that she was gifting us on a daily basis. It helped me reevaluate myself, my relationship with my mom, and ultimately my entire life path.