Buried Dreams, Unearthed Hope
I used to believe that dreams were a luxury—something only rich kids had the right to. I was born in the slums of St. Louis, Missouri, to a single mother who worked three jobs to keep food on our table. There was never talk about college or “careers.” Life was about surviving—just getting through the next day. At 15, I dropped out of high school. Not because I wanted to, but because I had to. My mom got injured on a cleaning job, and someone had to take care of my younger siblings. So I became “the second mother” — the girl who didn’t complain, who wore hand-me-downs, who didn’t dare to dream. By 22, I was stuck. I was working night shifts at a gas station, barely making minimum wage. Every day felt the same. I would stare at the customers coming in—business people, students, travelers—and wonder what it would feel like to be one of them. To not be invisible. One night, while scrolling through my cracked old phone, I saw a story about a woman who went back to school at 30 and became a lawyer. Something in me cracked open. I didn’t know how, I didn’t know where to start—but for the first time, I felt something that almost scared me: hope. That’s when I found HopeSpark Foundation. I still don’t know what made me fill out that form on their website. Maybe desperation. Maybe blind faith. Maybe I had just reached a point where I couldn’t keep living like a ghost. They called me two weeks later. They said my story moved them. They said they’d sponsor my GED classes. I remember crying in a McDonald’s bathroom for 30 minutes after that call. That was the first time in years someone said, “We believe in you.” Fast forward to now… I passed my GED. I enrolled in a community college. I’m studying psychology—because I want to help young women like me. I want to be the voice I never had. My mom passed away last year, but before she left, she told me, “You changed the story for this family.” And I did. HopeSpark didn’t just pay for school—they handed me back my identity. They reminded me that I matter. Now I volunteer at their events. I speak to girls still stuck in their own “hopeless chapters.” And I tell them, “The ending isn’t written yet.
