By age 15 I had stumbled onto a genius trick. All I needed to say was that I wanted to kill myself and I’d be placed into a hospital. When I was a psych patient, I wasn’t a foster kid.

I had been voluntarily and involuntarily placed in adult and adolescent psychiatric wards numerous times.  After living in a therapeutic group home for two years, I was placed into my last official foster home at 17 and I struggled through the 10th grade for the 3rd time.

The school system could not balance the credits I had earned from the numerous school districts I had moved through. Finally I dropped out of the 11th grade and stepped out on my own as a vulnerable and naïve 19 year old who had “aged out” of a system that had failed me as miserably as my own family had years before.

I had been taught zero life skills. I’d never held a job. I didn’t know how to make a doctor’s appointment. I didn’t know what a budget was or how to fill out a check. I didn’t know how to apply for an apartment or scramble an egg.

The first place I moved to was a room for rent in a crack house. I was terrified and practically helpless. I was thrilled at not being a foster kid, but I didn’t know anything else. One fact that gave me a sense of control over my life was that no one would get paid to house me ever again. I had been consistently treated as a second-class person in foster homes—I was valued as a source of income, but not wanted or loved as a human being.

As a child, I had been sexually abused by my dad for as long as I could remember. When I was 12 years old, I told a staff member at school. Child Protective Services removed me from my family during lunch recess the next day.

I was not allowed to say goodbye to my brothers or to call my mom. Over night, I lost all contact with my parents, my twin brother, my five other brothers, my grandma, my aunt, and a God that I thought I knew. I had only the clothes on my back.

On one of the first nights away from my family, I laid in a twin sized bed that I shared with another foster kid and listened to the foster mom talk with her neighbor, who was also a foster mom. Over their nightly tea, the two women ran down the list of names of each kid in their homes and compared prices for each. The neighbor was jealous of the amount my foster mom received for me. My foster mom explained that if she accepted the older ones, she too could earn more money.

At 13, I almost killed myself by swallowing an entire bottle of allergy medication. I did not intend to die; I merely wanted attention—any attention. I learned to survive the foster care system and all my loneliness, anger and sadness by threatening suicide, self-harming or wildly acting out. I became labeled by my caseworkers as “hard to place” and was set into a pattern of being placed only into homes licensed as Respite, which meant moving between homes roughly every 35 days.

One Respite placement was exceptionally abusive.  It was the only placement I ever attempted to run away from. The other girls and I were kept locked in the basement.  Food was set out for us on the top step of the stairs. We fought like animals for the food because there was never enough. The other girls would gang up on me.  On more than one occasion I woke up in the bathtub, stripped of my clothing, having been beaten unconscious by them.

I called my caseworker and she told me she was calling the police and that I had better return to the home because everyone was sick of my lies and no one else wanted me.

After I aged out, I relied on my previous “suicidal behaviors” and spent the next five years in and out of psychiatric hospitals. I was placed on Social Security and I tried to navigate a world that I didn’t feel I belonged in. I depended heavily on the few adults that invested in a relationship with me. In a sense I forced them to replace and fill the role of family.

Then, within a two week time period, I became homeless, unemployed, and discovered that I was pregnant.  At 26, I had surrounded myself with immaturity, drugs, sex and chaos.  I was out of control emotionally, and detached from God, people and myself.

As a young girl, I had wanted to be a mom.  In fact, I wanted to be a great mom. I longed for traditions, routine, permanency and worth. But because I was homeless during my pregnancy and had no friends or family willing to house me, I was at serious risk of losing my child to the system.

After living in shelters for 8 months, I found housing through Catholic Community Services.  I was able to give birth and bring my child home with me. I was scared and overwhelmed to be a mom, but in the group home, I observed other mothers and copied them. I knew that I knew nothing about parenting, so I learned to ask questions. I grew up fast!

God gave me my son in order to turn my life into a new direction–a direction that shows me just how good He is and just how protective He is. God has shown me that He was with me all along, even when I was at my lowest and my loneliest.

He showed me that I am not as indispensable as I had felt in that first foster home. He was with me when I swallowed the bottle of medicine. He heard me as I was burning and cutting on myself; while I screamed, “Can’t you see how I’m hurting!” He has kept me alive, and helped me to learn to live in new ways.

I’m sitting at my kitchen table as I write this and my son is running around playing. My life now resembles nothing like the life of growing up in the foster care system. Instead of bouncing around from home to home, I have raised my child in the same home for 8 years. His school photos are on the walls, food is in the fridge, and clothes are in the closets. The electricity is on; the house plants are growing. There are sticky spots on the floors, and a cat is curled up on the couch. This is my home. This is the home that I wanted as I was aged out of the foster care system. I’m surrounded by friends and family. I don’t question my worth. I know I’m wanted and even cherished. I no longer live terrified of my future or the unknown. I have stability, maturity and strength. I have joy and a huge sense of humor.

I am that great mom I wanted to be, but none of this is because of my own strength. My son Tress is 11 years old and such a sweet hilarious blessing. Miraculously, in the past few years I’ve been reunited with my biological family. I’m able to forgive my parents. I was a foster kid and I was aged out. Now I’m living a healthy life full of worth and meaning. There is hope.

The following is the story of Dennis Allan McCardle, 29, who shares about his experiences in the foster care system and his life beyond. The tone of the fragments is choppy in the way that Dennis’s memories and formative years were choppy. Some of Dennis’s early recollections are included as a crucial backdrop to his aging-out story.

I was born in Oklahoma City. My mom was a carnival person, a Carnie, at that time and she and my dad drove a semi truck. I was just born in a city they were in. My dad wasn’t in the picture very long, and she married a guy named Richard. Somehow Richard got custody of me for a while. Then I ended up with her again. Then she ended up getting arrested. That’s really what I remember from before.

I thought my mom was the greatest woman in the world. I was very attached to her.  The fact is that she was not all that attached to me, or else she would have tried to do better than just to leave us all the time. There’s a lot of the story that I don’t know. Maybe it’s better I don’t know it.

When I got put in the foster home I wasn’t allowed to see my mom. I had one of those carnival calendars that they make on fabric, the kind with your face and her face, and the calendar on there. It was one of my earliest memories. I slept on a mattress on the floor in a trailer home. I didn’t even have a room. I slept in the hallway right there. And the only thing I had was that calendar.

I have two sisters, and supposedly there’s another brother out there. My sister Rachel got adopted by a great family. When we got back in touch a few years ago Rachel said, “I always wondered why she would give me up and not you,” and I was like, “You got the better end of the deal. Man, I wish I would have got adopted.”

My great grandma’s name is Cleo, and I talk to her. Her husband, my great-grandfather, killed himself. Her son killed himself. And her other son, about 2 years ago, was sitting watching TV and had a massive heart attack on the couch right in front of her. It took the paramedics two hours to get there. So she had to sit and watch her dead son spasm for 2 hours. She had 11 mini strokes after that.

She’s doing a little bit better now, but she’s getting kind of senile. She calls me Dennis, but sometimes I think she’s calling me her son because her son’s name is Dennis Allan McCardle. I actually have my grandfather’s whole name, the one who killed himself.

Supposedly he celebrated the fact that he had a grandson, and he drove home from the bar and wasn’t heard from for a couple days, and then they found his car parked somewhere, and he’d shot himself in the head. But I never knew him. I just know the story.

Ralph has a deep voice, a huge smile, and a gentle spirit.  He is a kind and gracious man who commands your attention. Ralph wanted love and acceptance throughout his childhood.  Nobody ever wanted Ralph.

Ralph’s story begins at age two when a social worker took him and his brother Sam away from their parents. They stayed in the homes of various friends and temporary families until he was four.  His father came to visit them.  His dad loved him.  He still doesn’t understand why he could not go back to live with his parents, or why his Mom lost him and his brother to the court system.

That day when he was four, his case worker picked him up and never brought him back to his brother.  After that, Ralph was moved from foster home to foster home.  He went with the circumstances because they gave him no reasons.

One of the families would lock him out of the home when they wanted to punish him or to go on a family outing.  When a neighbor confronted the family about this, they said that they didn’t love Ralph.

Another family would force him to stand in the corner against the wall, balancing a penny on his nose.  Another used a large paddle with holes in it to “correct” his behavioral problems.  At last he threatened to use the paddle on his foster parent during one of these “corrections.”

There was one family that really cared about him and accepted him as their own.  Ralph still regrets that he sabotaged this relationship when he spoke angrily to his foster mom about something that was said to him.  Within an hour, a caseworker had come to pick him up and take him away.  He was 13 years old.  It was the last time that he would be in a home.

After leaving the final foster home, Ralph spent a weekend in juvenile detention.  At the end of that, the caseworker gave him five minutes to decide whether to stay there in juvenile detention or to go to a boys’ home.  He went with the boy’s home.

In the boys’ home, Ralph began to experience drugs and alcohol.  When he was 16, some of his drinking partners put him in the back of a truck and told him that he was being kidnapped and brought to California.

He jumped out of the back of the truck and split his head open on the highway.  Another car stopped at the blood on the road and took him to the emergency room.  After almost dying, he spent the next week in a coma.  They called him John Doe at the hospital since he had no ID and no family to call.

Fortunately, one of the nurses had worked at the boys’ home, and recognized Ralph.  He went back to the boys’ home, and one of the house parents told him that he had a purpose.

It was the first time he had heard about religion.  After his traumatic childhood, he did not feel that just one more traumatic life experience was reason to believe that life has meaning.

He lived at the boys’ home for a total of five years and left at age 18, with no educational diploma and no GED.  He had no idea of what to do, how to get a job, or even where to sleep.  It was the beginning of life on the streets.

Ralph is now 55 years old.  He is still haunted by the feeling that he did something wrong to lead to his own abandonment, and he still shuts down against everyone to cope with his pain and fear.

He has been married to his wife Becky for many years, following 4 previous marriages, divorces, and multiple children who are themselves lost to the foster system.  Becky reads for him since few of his foster parents encouraged his education and he did not learn how.  He credits it to her that he is not on hard drugs.

Ralph hates the fact that he never had a relationship with his parents, and that he has no relationship with his own children.  He’s been told that there were thirteen foster homes that he stayed in during his childhood, but he looks at that number skeptically.  There seemed to be more.

Candace says her life has been like an earthquake. Picture everything shaking until great cracks appear and then widen into impassable chasms. Broken apart. This year is different, however. She says that right now things are starting to be put back together.

Separated from her alcoholic mother at age nine, Candace does not know who her dad is. She was put in foster care when her mother was put in prison. By that early age she had already learned to fight; her five brothers taught her how to protect herself and see the world in terms of respect and disrespect. Fighting was her MO in her teens: “I was a firing ball of flame, I didn’t care about nobody.” She had a good foster mom for three years, but still she ran away at age thirteen. “I thought I was grown,” she says, “and nobody could tell me what to do.” Youth homes, treatment centers, jail – she went from one to the other until she reached eighteen. She ended up aging out of foster care while in jail. A week before her eighteenth birthday, she was told she would be allowed to contact her mother. Candace started putting the pieces together and realized she was aging out. She didn’t have anyone to come get her from the remote town where the jail was located, so she asked for help from the staff and they agreed to buy her a Greyhound bus ticket to the city.

Candace explains what that time was like: “They didn’t want to deal with me no more. They said ‘oh no, you need to go! We don’t want to help you – you are too much of a burden.’ That’s how it felt. I got off the bus and didn’t know what to do. I’m eighteen years old, don’t have no ID, don’t have no money, don’t have nothing…so where am I suppose to go?”

Walking around an outdoor mall in Denver that day, the first person she encountered was an ex-boyfriend who was now a pimp. While staying with him and seeing the piles of cash girls brought in, she began to consider prostitution as something she might do to earn money. She ended up contacting her mother about it: “Me, knowing my mom was a prostitute at one time, I just asked my mom. Who better to ask than your mom?”

From ages eighteen to twenty-one she was sold up and down the I-5 corridor by at least four different men. One of them would send her back and forth between LA and Vegas where she would walk the track at night and keep house for him by day. Sometimes she would manage to leave a pimp, all of whom were violent, but then a new boyfriend would show up with a new plan, inevitably involving prostitution or drug dealing. She met folks from New Horizons Ministries and REST (Real Escape from the Sex Trade) while their teams did late night outreach on the streets of Seattle in 2010.

In the past two years, things have changed a lot for her. She is doing well in a restorative housing program through REST, and she recently got a part time job at a coffee shop.  She also has a significant new tattoo: the prints of newborn baby feet are inked prominently on her chest.

Six months ago Candace gave birth to a baby girl. She talks passionately and emotionally about her love for her daughter, explaining how she has completely rearranged her priorities. Two days after she gave birth, however, her baby was put in foster care, in large part due to the guy Candace was dating at the time. Candace recounts in painful detail what it was like for her when she had to surrender her baby to Child Protective Services: “I went ape shit, crying a gallon – felt like I could have killed someone.” Because of her own traumatic experience of being taken from her mother, Candace says, “I never thought I would have a child and have that child taken from me!” She is working hard to get her daughter back, something her mother was never able to do.

The highlights of Candace’s week are when she goes to the foster care visitation center to spend time with her daughter. Candace has dozens of photos and videos of her on her phone. They look a lot alike: both have beautiful, expressive faces with high foreheads, arched eyebrows, and the same tilt to their eyes.

Candace will turn twenty-three soon. She is a smart, witty, and artistic, though she admits that she has learned to play dumb for survival. Her anger still flares up easily, and she defaults to a tough girl attitude. In her words, “I try to act like a hard ass—still do to this day—it comes with the life I was put in, not by choice.” Yet when talking about her baby, she is very soft. And with people she trusts she has begun to let her walls down, even call off the guard dogs, she says laughing. She feels intensely protective and yet sometimes helpless as a new mother, admitting that she doesn’t always know what to do when her little one cries. Her determination to take responsibility for her daughter, and her compassion for the situation she is in, are very promising for their future—together.

Brittny in her new winter coat, it fits perfectly

A few weeks ago we asked you to help us raise money for Brittny Boden, a 24 year old we profiled in our Aging out of Foster Care project. Brittny was in danger of becoming homeless when the rent on her subsidized apartment went up past market value. You came through for her, pitching in $2649 to date! Thanks to you, she now has the money for bills, groceries, and the ability to put a deposit on an affordable apartment in a better neighborhood.  Just in time too – there was a fatal shooting right next door to her apartment in Hempstead, NY, the third shooting in one week on her block.

Brittney received some good news this week. Tuesday December 11, 2012 was Brittny’s first day at her new job at Catholic Charities, and she received notice that she passed the New York State Child Protective Service exam!

Brittny’s immediate needs are taken care of for the month, but we’d like her to be able to make a great impression at her new job. She could use new work appropriate clothing. We’re so proud of how far she’s come, and we would really love to give her this last little gift to help her transition to her new life.

Thanks again for all your help!

http://salaamgarage.com/2012/action-brittny-needs-your-help/and donate this week.

Special thanks to One Simple Wish, an organization that grants simple wishes to foster kids. They have offered to subsidize her expensive commute for a month. More special thanks to author Lauren Barnholdt for her substantial contribution. Follow them on Twitter @LaurenBarnholdt and @OneSimpleWish

GOAL: $1734 by December 12th, 2012 ($2,649 raised so far!!!)

Christmas is a time when most people think of getting together with family at home. But this Christmas Brittny Boden, a 24 year old we profiled in our Aging out of Foster Care project, is facing eviction from her low-income housing complex, and has neither family nor friends to turn to right now to help her.

Her previously subsidized apartment is now above market rate

Brittny’s apartment in Hempstead, NY had previously been fully subsidized as part of a Nassau County homelessness prevention program for youth who aged-out of the foster care system. But when funding abruptly dried up, her rent reverted to an above-market rate of $1124 a month, which is only $40 less than the $1164 Brittny made per month as a department manager at Walmart ($9.30/hr).

Luckily, this week she started a new job with Catholic Charities at a home for the mentally ill and her income increased to $12.17 an hour.  But her rent isn’t her only bill. She doesn’t have a car and her current commute is $18/day to get to and from Huntington Station where she is working for the next few months.

She’s worked hard to try to fix her situation

Brittny is a resilient and clever young woman who has tried multiple tactics to get her home situation remedied and get her rent lowered to a reasonable rate:

• Petitioned multiple times to have her rent lowered unsuccessfully
• Called organizations for homelessness prevention (didn’t qualify for aid because she doesn’t have children)
• Tried to apply for section 8 housing (2.5 year waiting list)
• Got a roommate to share rent (who skipped out without paying after 2 months)

It seems unfair that there are two apartments in her complex where women are paying only $250 or $25 for monthly rent. Why is Brittny being penalized with a higher rate? Because she is working, and is deemed “above the poverty line.”

Brittny has gumption and aspires to help others in her situation

Brittny is working towards her goal of moving up within Catholic Charities to work with foster youth.  She graduated in May with a degree in Psychology from SUNY’s Westbury State University.  It is an incredible achievement for someone who was in and out of homeless shelters during her college years. Brittny doesn’t quit but she does get down sometimes.

She’s now in debt and will likely be evicted at Christmas

Brittny graduated college only to enter a dismal job market.  Then Superstorm Sandy arrived, Walmart was without power and so she couldn’t work (and make rent money). Even though she did everything she could, she now owes over $5000 in back rent and $500 in utilities.  Her final hearing is on November 29^th, 2012 (1 week from Thanksgiving).  She is pretty sure that she will be evicted within 30 days.  If she doesn’t have a place to go at that time, her belongings will be taken to Bennett Storage in Hempstead where they will be auctioned off.

Brittny doesn’t have family to help her – she needs US

Brittny doesn’t have a family the way most of us do.  That’s because Brittny aged-out of the foster care system a few years ago.

That is why we are putting out this one-time call-to-action to help a worthy young woman get a fresh start.

GOAL= $1734 by December 12th, 2012

What the money is needed for

• Rent/deposit: Brittny first and foremost needs cash to pay for first, last and deposit for an affordable apartment in Jamaica, Queens. All of New York rent is incredibly high, but Jamaica is a good solution for Brittny because it’s one of the most affordable places to live, she has a church and friends there, NYC Subway and she will be neat the LIRR to get to work.
• Commute costs: Tickets for Long Island Railroad (daily roundtrip is $10 plus taxi from the station to work)
  
• Clothes: If we can get that taken care of, Brittny could use money towards some winter basics like a coat and boots, and also some clothes to help her look professional at work. She knows it’s important to dress for the job you want and not the job you have. It’s a little challenging to shop for clothes when you are size 5X woman with size 11 shoes ($83.69 Winter coat, $39 boots, $25 new tops)  But she is the best person to choose clothing.  We’ll accept donations of used clothing in NYC.  But prefer you donate the cost of shipping to the fund than send clothing she may not love.

Every little bit helps

Any amount you can donate, from $10 to $100, anything you can manage. Brittny is already immensely touched. She is an inspiring young woman who is trying to build a better life for herself.  Please help her do that.



Click Here to Donate to our Brittny Fundraiser

Meet Brittny
Photos and Video by William Vazquez

She challenges the audience to reach out to those who are aging out of the foster care system to Teach1Thing to 1 person that will make a big difference, very simply. Amanda is later interviewed and reviewed  by Forbes.

NOVEMBER 19: APA/NY Apple Lecture
Maggie Soladay presents SalaamGarage

Shoot Photos, Cause Change

Monday, November 19, 2012

7pm-8pm

SoHo Apple Store (103 Prince St)

Free Admission (seating is limited)

*no advance registration is required

SalaamGarageNYC chapter chief, producer and photography editor Maggie Soladay will be speaking about how to make positive social change happen through photography.  Sharing photography from the current and ongoing Aging-Out of Foster Care in NY project and other SalaamGarage humanitarian media projects.

For More: http://apany.com/event/november-19-apple-lecture-maggie-soladay-presents-salaam-garage/

Maggie Soladay is an editorial photography editor, producer, and photographer based in NYC.  She is a passionate activist, using her knowledge of the old and new media to tackle the world’s humanitarian and environmental problems.  Maggie believes everyone has a calling to give back to the communities they care about. And photographers and journalists have a special duty:  “We can be officers of justice and social change by putting our media skills to use for good.”

In October 2010 I traveled to Ethiopia with SalaamGarage to profile the childbirth injury of Obstetric Fistula. I was touched by the stories that I heard at Hamlin Fistula Hospital in Addis Ababa and by the Ethiopians whom I met. I wondered what solutions might be possible for the women with the saddest stories, especially those whose fistula repair surgeries were not successful. These women have little hope for a viable future.

One of the important connections I made on that first journey was with a man named Tsega whose workshop manufactures and installs hydro-powered turbines. These water mills grind grain like wheat, barley, and tef and provide great assistance to rural women who otherwise would need to do this backbreaking work by hand. Each mill helps about 800 families (approximately 3,500 people) so has significant positive impact on women in rural villages.  I asked Tsega if it might be possible to build one of these mills where the profits were specifically designated to help fistula patients. He told me it had never been done but agreed it was a good idea.

In October 2011 I spent a month in Ethiopia on my own exploring this option as well as a plan for an additional income-generation center to provide fistula patients with more new options. In the community of Begi in Western Ethiopia (Tsega’s hometown as well as the location of an existing fistula program upon which it was possible to build) I asked questions, met with key stakeholders, and navigated through tricky discussions of budgets, politics, sustainability, and international donors. It was frequently frustrating and disheartening, but I believed in the idea.

Once back home I began fundraising in earnest toward a $10,000 goal. Crooked Trails stepped in to serve as the project’s fiscalsponsor allowing donations to be tax-deductible. Over the past year through generous support from friends, family, churches, and other donors the money trickled in. Miraculously, the goal was reached, and the construction of the mill is now nearly complete. To be part of a process of making tangible something which was once just a thought is unbelievably inspiring. To know that people, sometimes complete strangers, have stepped forward to help from every corner of this country and across Ethiopia is humbling beyond measure.

In less than two weeks, the mill is to be complete, and in October 2012 I will be leading a trip back to Ethiopia on behalf of Crooked Trails and SalaamGarage to visit the project and to continue education about this preventable childbirth injury and support of fistula survivors who are still suffering. In some ways it is a full-circle from what began as a stray thought two years ago. In other ways it is the beginning of a new path, a co-created relationship with Ethiopians in the community of Begi as we work together to forge new possibilities.

There are still lots of questions, and I’m grateful for the ongoing support of an advisory team and others who express interest: what is the best way to provide ongoing help for the women who need it? Is a permanent compound and training center with courses in self-esteem, hygiene, literacy, money management, and self-sufficiency (which comes at a high price tag and relies on donor money) necessary, or are smaller income-generation projects that can be funded by the water mill’s income the better option?

I trust that another journey to the Horn of Africa will bring more answers, even as I know it will bring more questions. But I’m heartened by the progress, by the support, and by the journey itself. And the confluence of intention, resources, and action? It’s where I’m finding true fulfillment. Come join me!

Want to join Crooked Trails and SalaamGarage on the team trip to Ethiopia this October 21-November 3?
Please click HERE.

To contact Kristie directly, please email: Kristie@travelpoet.com.

Photos © Kristie McLean

Open your heart, change the world!
All Photos by Kristie McLean

Built from the inaugural SalaamGarage trip to Ethiopia in 2010, Crooked Trails and SalaamGarage join forces this October to bring a small team of global citizens on an unforgettable journey to the Horn of Africa. Support fistula patients and the women of the world!

Our journey to Ethiopia will take you straight into the heart of its people, and most notably its women. Like many other parts of the world, rural women in Ethiopia struggle with heavy burdens and lack of access to basic medical care, education, and financial independence.

We will learn about the challenges of women’s reproductive health, and particularly the childbirth injury of obstetric fistula. We will visit Hamlin Fistula Hospital in the capital city of Addis Ababa and meet women who are waiting for their fistula repair surgeries as well as the dedicated staff who serve them. We will see Desta Mender “Joy Village”, a long-term care facility for fistula patients as well as a place where new beginnings are possible.

A key touchstone of the journey will be traveling to Western Wologa in the remote Oromia region to meet fistula patients in their home villages, hear their stories, and see how a water-powered mill that grinds grain can be part of a solution of emotional and financial self-sufficiency.

The second oldest Christian nation on earth, Ethiopia is famous for its rock-hewn churches, Olympic gold medal runners, top coffee and honey production, and as the only African country where an indigenous alphabet is still widely used. It has its own time system and unique calendar (seven to eight years behind the Gregorian calendar) and has the largest number of UNESCO World Heritage sites in Africa. It’s also one of the oldest sites of human existence known to scientists today, having yielded some of humanity’s most ancient traces. Geographically, Ethiopia boasts some of Africa’s highest mountains and lowest points below sea level. Containing 84 different ethnic groups and languages, Ethiopia’s communities provide a stunning array of history and cultural traditions.

On our journey, we’ll be sightseeing in Addis Ababa, visiting beautiful Lalibela, and learning about the historical and geopolitical backdrop of the most populous landlocked nation in the world.

A portion of your program fees will go directly to help fistula patients in the community of Begi. Come prepared to learn, be humbled, build relationships, and be inspired by the strength of women helping other women toward a healthier, safer, more peaceful future.

Due to the sensitivity of fistula patients and their challenging conditions, this itinerary is limited to 8 participants. Space is filling up. Reserve your spot today!

Who We Are
SalaamGarage, a storytelling organization that partners with International NGOs and local non-profits. Participants create and share independent media projects that raise awareness and cause positive change in their online and offline social communities.

We partner with grass roots, forward thinking organizations. Through our trips one experiences rare access to the work of social entrepreneurs that would otherwise go unreported, while engaging with local communities on an entirely new level.

Kristie McLean, your trip leader and guide, first traveled to Ethiopia in 2010 with SalaamGarage where she was inspired to get involved in creating a water mill and income-generation project as one solution for women suffering from fistula. This trip will be Kristie’s 3^rd journey to Ethiopia and she’s thrilled to share the country and to highlight her project as an example of what’s possible if you think outside of the box and just jump in!

Crooked Trails is a non-profit community-based travel organization helping people broaden their understanding of the planet and its diverse cultures through education, community development and responsible travel. We are a 501(c)3 nonprofit and a portion of your program fees goes directly to the non-profit project we will be working with in Ethiopia. Our advisory partner for this program is

Costs
The cost of 2012 Ethiopia program is $3,925. A $500 deposit is required to confirm your participation. Please note that since this trip focuses on working to support with fistula that $2,463 of your trip cost is tax-deductible!

Includes: all in-country transportation and flights, most meals as listed in itinerary, all accommodations, all activities listed in the itinerary including museum and entrance fees, all local guides and translators, airport transfers, and a donation to the obstetric fistula project in Begi.
Does not include: international flights, a few meals as indicated in the itinerary, tips and personal items such as internet, laundry and phone calls.

Ethiopia Program Itinerary: October 21 – November 3, 2012
                                                                                    

A note: All of our itineraries are flexible. Our philosophy at Crooked Trails is to let the country guide our experiences and not to live by a strict itinerary. If unexpected events arise, we may change plans to take advantage of the situation or deal with an issue. However, we will do all we can to offer you everything that is on the schedule. Please be flexible yourself and allow the program to unfold.

Meals included in the program cost are listed as B (breakfast), L (lunch) and D (dinner) for each day. Average Price of Food: Breakfast – $8, Lunch – $12, and Dinner – $15.

Sunday October 21: Day 1
International flights depart the USA to begin our Ethiopian adventure!

Monday, October 22nd: Day 2
Arrive into Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport. Your airport transfer to the hotel is included. Connect with other Crooked Trails travelers and settle in.

Tuesday, October 23rd: Day 3
Sightsee in Ethiopia’s capital city of Addis Ababa. We’ll visit the National Museum, Holy Trinity Cathedral, and other famous landmarks as well as optional shopping at the Mercado, the largest outdoor market in all of Africa! Get to know your fellow participants at our group Welcome Dinner. B, L, D

Wednesday, October 24th: Day 4
Visit Hamlin Fistula Foundation Hospital to meet the directors and learn about the challenges of obstetric fistula and its successful treatment. We’ll have lunch at Desta Mender “Joy Village” rehabilitation facility and visit the Hamlin School of Midwifery. Return to Addis for a free evening and dinner with new friends. B, L

Thursday, October 25th: Day 5
We’ll leave Addis Ababa and begin the 700 km driving trip to Begi, enjoying scenic stops along the way to Western Wologa. Overnight will be spent enroute. Group dinner included. B, L, D

Friday, October 26th: Day 6
We will continue our drive to Begi, arriving at the Begi Gidami Synod (BGS) compound in the evening for dinner. B, L, D

Saturday, October 27th: Day 7
Today we’ll tour the BGS compound, keeping an eye out for monkeys and other wildlife. We’ll make introductions and spend some time meeting with some of the fistula patients who are part of the BGS program. B, L, D

Sunday, October 28th: Day 8
Participate in a lively African Protestant Christian church service! This is a rare opportunity to witness the power of deep faith in rural Ethiopia. In the afternoon we will spend time with the fistula patients. B, L, D

Monday, October 29th: Day 9
We will tour the Chandi River water mill, learn about the process of grinding mills, and see the diversity in local vegetation. You’ll be impressed with the number of plant species as well as the getting an introduction to how coffee is grown! We will spend some special time with the fistula patients and enjoy a final dinner in Begi. B, L, D

Tuesday, October 30th: Day 10
In the morning we will drive to Assosa where we will board our in-country flight back to Addis Ababa.  Enjoy a free evening and dinner to spend with new friends, explore on your own, or rest. B, L

Wednesday, October 31st: Day 11
We will fly from Addis Ababa to the World Heritage site of Lalibela, famous for its amazing rock-hewn churches. In the afternoon we will tour the first group of churches and enjoy the relaxed, easy pace of this beautiful town. B, L, D

Thursday, November 1st: Day 12
We will tour the second group of rock-hewn churches, including the famous and most-frequently photographed St. George church. Enjoy some free time exploring and a meal on your own. B, D

Friday, November 2nd: Day 13
We will leave lovely Lalibela and enjoy some spectacular landscapes on our flight back to Addis Ababa. In the evening we’ll share a special farewell cultural dinner. B, L, D

Saturday, November 3rd: Day 14
This is a day for final shopping, visiting, and packing. Depart Addis Ababa for your flights back to the USA. Your airport transfer is included. Thank you for joining us; have a safe trip home!

What happens when youth age out of the foster care system in the NYC area?  Everybody Needs Somebody takes a look. This book is the culmination of stories from the NYC chapter of SalaamGarage.  Local photographers and journalists volunteered to create stories about 15 young people soon after they exited the foster care system. These young people struggle to survive in an economy that is difficult even for the well-off. Their remarkable stories forecast the hurdles that approximately 25,000 U.S. foster kids are facing right now as they age out of the system unnoticed.

We want to thank the folks at El Sereno press in California for the amazing work they did making the Everybody Needs Someone book beautiful!

El Sereno graphics out of Los Angeles, CA far exceeded our expectations in every way. We are so proud of the book and the effect it is already having on those who have received it.  We want them to get the attention they deserve for being part of this project.

http://www.elserenographics.com  (website is being rebuilt and updated so stay tuned)

“As a photographer, I needed a printer that understood how to produce a book in true Black and White and beautiful Color.  El Sereno Graphics has a press and staff that can do just that.  I was so satisfied with the quality and price of my first book with them, I developed a sales staff to sell their work!  Many ask why not the on-line places, all I can say is, quality, speed, and price.” –Bruce Byers (Aging-Out Project photographer and book coordinator)

In edition to high-end photography books, they also print catalogs, sales sheets, postcards, cards, booklets. You get individual control over every aspect of the book or printing project and easy fast tweaks.

New York and east of the Mississippi contact: Bruce Byers bruce@elserenographics.com 212-585-3928
California and west of the Mississippi contact: Ralph Hattenbach ralph@elserenographics.com 310-486-3446

Saturday June 23rd 1-4pm
LICM 11 David Ave. Garden City, NY 11530 (On the campus of Nassau Community College)
RSVP at http://agingout.eventbrite.com/

Join many of the photographers, writers, and subjects from this important humanitarian media project about the challenges youth face when they age out of the foster care system in NY. There will be a presentation starting around 1:30pm, so please try to be there early.

The show runs from June 16-September 2, 2012 at The Long Island Children’s Museum.

PHOTOGRAPHERS: Ian Spanier, Heather Walsh, Moya McAllister, Matt Furman, Jordan Hollender, Robert Hooman, Amelia Coffaro, Lisa Weatherbee, Alejandra Villa, Jim Sewastynowicz, Bruce Byers, William Vazquez, Yvonne Allaway

WRITERS: Moya McAllister, Tommy Hallissey, Carrie Vining Spanier, Mollie Neal, Dimitra Kessenides, Amy Kolz, Patty Paine, Shannon Green, Daphne Eviatar, Luke Whyte, Amy Sernatinger, Vanessa Arriola

RSVP not required but encouraged. Without RSVP, museum admission is $11.

WHAT TO BRING:
The LICM and SalaamGarageNYC are hosting a gift card drive to help the young people profiled in the show and others like them with everyday expenses. Donate your unused gift cards. Buy new gift cards. Gift debit cards work too!
Key Foods, Target, KMart, Duane Reade, Staples, Old Navy, Gap, Macy’s, Men’s Warehouse, Barnes and Noble, DSW, Bed Bath & Beyond , T-Mobile, ATT, Verizon (cell phone credits and gift cards for prepaid cell phones) are examples of stores in both LI and NYC.
&
If you have a smart phone: please have a QR reader application downloaded. Each of the stories in the exhibition are QR coded so older teens and adults can access the full stories that go with each group of photographs.

You can still donate to the gift card drive even if you don’t live in Long Island.
Mail to:
Maggie Soladay/SGNYC
30-69 Hobart Street #4n
Woodside, NY 11377

Join US! For the opening Reception for the Everybody Needs Someone, Aging-Out of Foster Care Project by SalaamGarageNYC. Join many of the photographers, writers, and subjects from this important humanitarian media project about the challenges youth face when they age out of the foster care system in NY. There will be a presentation starting around 1:30pm, so please try to be there early. The show runs from June 16-September 2, 2012 at The Long Island Children’s Museum.
PHOTOGRAPHERS: Ian Spanier, Heather Walsh, Moya McAllister, Matt Furman, Jordan Hollender, Robert Hooman, Amelia Coffaro, Lisa Weatherbee, Alejandra Villa, Jim Sewastynowicz, Bruce Byers, William Vazquez, Yvonne Allaway
WRITERS: Moya McAllister, Tommy Hallissey, Carrie Vining Spanier, Mollie Neal, Dimitra Kessenides, Amy Kolz, Patty Paine, Shannon Green, Daphne Eviatar, Luke Whyte, Amy Sernatinger, Vanessa ArriolaRSVP not required but encouraged. Without RSVP, museum admission is $11. (You do not need to print your Ticket, the list will be at the front desk)

WHAT TO BRING:
The LICM and SalaamGarageNYC are hosting a gift card drive to help the young people profiled in the show and others like them with everyday expenses. Donate your unused gift cards. Buy new gift cards. Gift debit cards work too!Key Foods, Target, KMart, Duane Reade, Staples, Old Navy, Gap, Macy’s, Men’s Warehouse, Barnes and Noble, DSW, Bed Bath & Beyond , T-Mobile, ATT, Verizon (cell phone credits and gift cards for prepaid cell phones) are examples of stores in both LI and NYC.
&
If you have a smart phone: please have a QR reader application downloaded. Each of the stories in the exhibition are QR coded so older teens and adults can access the full stories that go with each group of photographs.

Please visit the Kickstarter page and donate.  Even $5 makes a difference, $1 is also possible, but we welcome a sponsor at the $1000 level who will be rewarded with a copy of the book and with their name on the wall of the exhibition for 2.5 months of its run.  If you can’t donate please share in your social networks, “likes” and shares go a long way to reaching the people who can help us reach our goals and help future generations of youth in the foster care system.

This year, approximately 1,000 youth will age out of the foster care system in NYC alone. Nationally, 1 in 5 will become homeless; 1 in 4 will be incarcerated within two years of aging-out; about 50 percent of young women will become pregnant within 1 year; and only half of all foster youth will graduate high school.*

The SalaamGarageNYC Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign ends in 52 hours (Wednesday June 13th) Please Support this important project.

The SalaamGarageNYC team has been working around the clock to complete the Aging-Out of Foster Care in NY Project and raise the pledges to make the project possible.  This project tells the stories of 15 youth who recently aged-out of the foster care system in NY. We have produced a book that will ship this week (sneak peek of the cover above) and are mounting an exhibition of the photographs at the Long Island Children’s Museum starting this Wednesday, the same day the Kickstarter fundraiser ends.

For more about our project and the non-profit org we partnered with, You Gotta Believe in Coney Island, please visit the  About The Aging-Out of Foster Care Project in NY

Here is a sample tweet or profile update you can use:
Everybody Needs Someone, Aging-Out of Foster Care by @salaamgarageNYC. Share, “Like”, or donate now! http://kck.st/JVVx5E
We are on Twitter @SalaamGarageNYC

Elijah was two-years-old when Children’s Services found him and his 12-year-old brother, JB, living unsupervised in a Bronx apartment. Mom hadn’t been around much – a heavy drug user, she birthed five kids with five men but didn’t raise one. So JB and Elijah were sent to live with their grandmother and third brother, CJ, in Atlanta.

Down south, the boys were a real handful for “Grandmoms,” Elijah said. “We were wild down there – running around all day and night outside.”

Holes the size of 8-year-olds were made in walls and wounds the shape of silverware tips scarred skin. Aged six, Elijah watched cops throw JB into the back of a cruiser. The brothers’ eyes met – separated by ten years and a pane of glass – and the 16-year-old said, “Open the door.” So Elijah did. And the whole family watched that night as JB jumped fences in handcuffs on the local news.

Aged eight, Elijah found a Glock pistol under a cushion in the living room chair. Boots were thrown and the front door slammed behind JB. Two months later, he was out front with a gas can throwing kerosene on the house. He lit a match. Whoosh.

“I was mad at him,” Elijah said, “for burning up all my toys.”

JB was sent to prison for arson and the rest of the family returned to New York City. Elijah and CJ had a brief stint living with their mother, but she was still heavy into drugs.

“She beat my brother with a dog chain,” says Elijah. “She tried to burn me with the stove.”

When Elijah was eight, his grandmother fell off a ladder and snapped her femur. She was left crippled and unable to care for the brothers, which forced Elijah into the foster care system for the next 12 years. He would never be adopted.

He spent the bulk of those 12 years at Children’s Village Residential School in the small town of Dobbs Ferry. Surrounded by a barbed wire fence, Children’s Village “houses and educates ‘at-risk’ boys aged 6 to 20 at a school on the premises”, according to their website.

For Elijah, however, Children’s Village, “was like a long drawn out process of being abandoned.”

“Once you spend your first night there,” he said, “and you sleep by yourself in one of those beds with all those other kids, you are no longer a child.”

“It’s like being in jail, the way they restrict your movements, the way they tell you how to act, [and] how to behave.

“It really felt like nobody loved me. No kid should have to feel like that.”

Life After Foster Care

Unadopted foster children age out of care between the ages of 18 and 21. Often grossly underprepared, they stand on the edge of a financial cliff without parental lifelines, many having never cooked an egg or withdrawn from an ATM. Statistics are not on their side.

“It was very scary,” Elijah said.

• In the US, roughly 30,000 people age out of care each year
• By the age of 24, less than half will be employed
• Almost a quarter will be homeless
• 60 percent of men will end up in prison
• 75 percent of women will end up pregnant

Often, the little things trip them up, the things most people take for granted, “like time management or trusting someone enough to ask for help,” Elijah said. “Filling out proper paperwork, forgetting to buy groceries and shit.”

When he was discharged at age 21, Elijah had $4,000— half of which he spent on a car. “Thank God I had a job. If I didn’t have a job and I just aged out of care, I’d have been f*****.”

But eventually he lost that job and, in turn, he lost his new apartment – and landed on the doorstep of his 18-year-old sister Mariah’s dad’s apartment in Brooklyn. He slept on the couch, slinging weed to pay rent and kept his belongings in his car. He had planned to save up some money and go out to Arizona to be with his fourth brother Jerry, but one day the cops ran the plates on his car. They found out that Elijah had no registration or insurance because, “I didn’t know any better.” The car and everything inside it was impounded, and Elijah spent 10 days in jail.

When he got out, he found the remains of his life thrown into the hallway outside the apartment. When he banged on the door, Mariah’s dad appeared with a gun in his hand. Elijah got the message.

You Gotta Believe

On the verge of homelessness, he made a last-ditch call to his friend Everett. Everett had been placed with Susan, a woman in Washington Heights by You Gotta Believe, an organization specializing in finding families for foster kids that age out. Susan also took Elijah in and he found work helping another You Gotta Believe representative, Denise, move into her apartment. Denise opened her arms to Elijah, and soon after, her apartment.

At times, their living arrangement resembles a storage unit as much as it does an apartment, but together, they’re building a home. Today, Elijah calls Denise mom. He helps her care for her adopted 2-year-old. She helps him plan a future. Recently, he was accepted into a school where he’s earning his GED.

For the first time in 13 years, Elijah has the one thing that could keep almost anyone aging out of care from slipping through the cracks. Elijah has a family.

Krista spends her working hours tending to a woman with dementia in an assisted living facility. Like so many health-care aides, she is a nurturing soul. Some would call it ironic that this is her job. She spent most of her childhood being shuttled from one foster home to another without experiencing any stable nurturing relationships.

For just five short years Krista had a secure home life. Her parents were young adults with “conflicts” and were unable to care for her and her 9-year-old sister so the girls were sent to live with their grandfather. The stay was short-lived. Krista remembers sitting in a hallway next to a closed door. Inside the room, she says, a babysitter would rape her sister.
This was the end of any real home life or permanency she would experience until she reached her teen years. While most kids were enjoying family traditions and forming life-long friendships with neighborhood children, she spent the next eight years being shuttled to different houses where she was raised by foster parents, nannies and group home employees. Being placed with her sister was her only real comfort until they were separated. “I was hurting cuz I then knew I didn’t have any family,” says Krista.

“Each time your stuff is packed up and the social worker is standing there telling you that you are going somewhere else, you feel abandoned. You feel unwanted. You feel you aren’t worthy,” says Krista. That happened 10 times and these invisible wounds don’t heal even as an adult.

As a 27-year-old woman, Krista reflects on her life and believes that she would rather have stayed with a troubled family than have lived with “people who don’t really care for you.”

After her parents recovered from crack addiction she was reunited with them. First living with her father in Oswego, she enjoyed middle school and simple pleasures such as walking to a scenic lake. High school was spent back in her hometown, Hempstead, NY, getting to know her mother who encouraged her to drop her tomboy persona and become more girlish. With a high school diploma and no job prospects, she took care of her grandmother until she was 23 and briefly lived again with her mother. She was rebellious against her mother’s discipline and their relationship was contentious. Krista did what she had learned to do when things got rough: she moved.

“It was the biggest mistake of my life,” says Krista. With nowhere to turn, she ended up in a homeless shelter. “You feel like you are at the bottom of the earth. Everything is horrible. I thought my life is over. I can’t believe this is what my life has become.”

Working dead-end jobs, sleeping in dangerous shelters on cots next to strangers and living in rooms for rent, became a new pattern. At times Krista relied on government assistance for room and board. She recalls one home where she lived in cramped quarters and was fed nothing more than peanut butter and crackers. When the landlord found her taking ice from the freezer, she slammed it shut on her hand and then placed a lock and chain around the appliance. No matter where she lived, it never felt like a real home.

One cold winter night after finishing a 12-hour shift at Macy’s, she had to wait outside the closed store for three hours for a taxi. While other employees had gone home to welcoming family members and the comfort of their own beds, she went alone to a homeless shelter. “You walk in this dark room and all you see is cots and people sleeping, “ says Krista. “You don’t know who you are laying next to. I didn’t sleep all night.”
She was living without any emotional or financial safety net — until she regained her faith in God. “I kept saying I need to get back to church and to Christ,” says Krista. She reached out to government agencies for rental assistance only to be rejected. In the meantime, she tithed her entire tax return to her church believing that she would receive a major blessing from God in return.

Krista’s life began to turn around. She got a call from Barbara Boyle, a senior case manager for the Nassau County Office of Housing and Community Development. Through the Homelessness Prevention & Rapid Re-Housing Program (HPRP), Boyle was offering to pay part of her rent, help her move into a decent apartment and give her a furniture voucher. The same week she landed a full-time job as a health aide at a nursing home. The next call from Barbara was an even bigger surprise. The agency offered to pay her entire rent for a full year. “I was in shock. Nothing like this ever happens to me,” says Krista. “HPRP gave me an outlook that I can do anything I put my mind to…I feel like I can conquer anything…That void I got from foster care is lifted because I still have a purpose.”
With her new living situation and a scholarship for a massage therapy training program, Krista is building a better life for herself. She enjoys learning how to heal people with her hands and having real potential for future employment. “I am grateful to have the opportunity to learn…. you can’t live without an education.”

Life, however, is grueling. Most of her days she works the night shift at the assisted living facility. Then she goes straight to school and, after a short stop at home, heads back to work. Four days a week her sleep consists only of short catnaps. Relying on public transportation, simple tasks such as grocery shopping can take hours out of her precious free time. Instead of resting on Sundays she dons her prized purple and gold choir robe and heads to church. Attending church gives her spiritual strength and wearing the robe “makes me feel like royalty,” says Krista.

She is now optimistic about her future and would like to give massages on a cruise ship. “I want to work and explore the world…and make people feel better,” says Krista. She also dreams of having her own family. “I want to have a great husband, to have a house, a bank account and a whole mindset to have children,” says Krista, and she refuses to ever be dependent on anyone to take care of her.

Look what rolled off the printer at Fiber Ink Studio today. One of 5 banner size prints for the entryway of the Long Island Children’s Museum show opening June 23, 2012.  Amelia Coffaro’s beautiful portrait of Nefertiti.

We are looking for sponsors at the $1000 level.  Realtors, law firms, local and national organizations or companies who care about education, philanthropy, community and especially child welfare.  Please spread the word, share our project on Facebook and ask people to contribute.  Even $5 makes a difference.

If the all of the people who “liked” our project and didn’t donate just gave $5 we would nearly have reached our goal already.  The Kickstarter closes June 13, 2012: http://kck.st/JVVx5E.  Same day we start to install the show!

Photos by Jim Sewastynowicz

Richard Wilkerson has no regrets about growing up in the foster care system. In fact, he believes that his experience as a teenager in various group homes has given him a powerful gift—one of understanding and connecting with people who also have hardships to overcome. Even though Richard is currently unemployed at age 27, he is working hard to better his life. On Mondays and Tuesdays he attends school to earn his GD diploma, and on Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays he volunteers as an aide for the disabled and elderly at the Beth Abraham Nursing Center. The gratification he receives from encouraging people who are blind or unable to walk keeps him humble and thankful for his good fortune. After all, there was a time in Richard’s life when he, too, needed encouragement—just before he aged out of foster care.

Shortly before he had to leave the system, he participated on a panel for prospective foster parents. They asked questions and he told them without hesitation that even though he was 20, he was afraid of living on his own. Whether it was fate or luck, Mary Chancy came up to Richard that Saturday and invited him over for the holidays. She wanted Richard to mingle with her family and see how they operated, which he did. They shared an instant connection and for the next two years Richard became a member of their family. Although Richard admits that it wasn’t always perfect, he loved being part of the Chancy household and still considers Mary to be his mother. He relished their time eating dinners together, watching sports on TV, and going to church. He knows that if Mary hadn’t adopted him, he would have struggled miserably on his own. She still keeps Richard’s bedroom ready for his frequent visits home.

Richard has nine biological siblings: six sisters and three brothers. Sadly he has had to separate himself from them as they have only acted as a negative influence on his life. “I realize that at this point in my life, poison people can contaminate a good heart. I feel like I lost a lot dealing with my biological family. At the age of 27 it is hard to walk away. I love my family with every fiber of my being, but they weren’t healthy for my heart.” Richard says that he wants to become more comfortable with himself spiritually, mentally, and physically before reuniting with his siblings.

When Richard turned 15, he moved in with a foster family in Manhattan at a Park Avenue address. It didn’t go well and a year later he moved to a group home in the Bronx. Richard did not take school seriously there, so once again he was uprooted and transferred to another group home in Harlem, where he lived for the next five years.

If it wasn’t for the foster care system, Richard says, he would not be the confident man that he is today. A lot of people downplay foster care, Richard says, but he has no regrets. He believes that the system helped him out tremendously. He learned how to cook, eat healthy, do laundry, manage money, and to be responsible in the group home world. Richard treasures the guidance the group homes provided during his teenage years, which he admits encouraged him to be humble and to have respect for others.

Richard’s father did not play a big role in his upbringing at home. But now that Richard is a father of three little boys, he does not use that as an excuse to ignore his responsibilities. “It’s tough, it takes sacrifice, it takes dedication, it takes patience. I love my boys with every fiber of my being. A family takes a lot of we and not me,” he says.

Even though many people believe that life is about laughing and being happy, Richard focuses on inspiring people. Every day he asks himself how many people he has made smile when they were feeling down. Did he offer a lady a seat on the subway or hold a door open for others behind him? In short, his daily fulfillment stems from helping others—not by concentrating on his own needs. This philosophy is why he enjoys his volunteer job at Beth Abraham Nursing Center. One day Richard wheeled a 92-year-old woman to physical therapy and asked her how she was doing. When she answered, very weakly, that she was tired, he got her to smile. He talks to her every day that he works, and she looks forward to his visits.

Richard says life is like taking a test. “Are you going to get test anxiety and not show up? Or are you going to give it your best shot.” For him, failing is not an option. He is giving life his best shot.