Americorp

Everyone starts off with a dream as a kid, to be an astronaut, scientist, sumo wrestler, a writer...well,
me? I wanted to help people, in any and every way I could. My thought process was that if I could leave
someone with one more smile on their face than they started the day with I had done my job right.
Sometimes growing up dreams change, however mine only grew, morphed, and expanded. I may not
have the proof of education you generally require but I do have the life experience to truly understand
the problems these people face and bring critical thinking skills to bring creative large scale solutions to
work on, either with a team or by enacting myself if need be. I make up for my lack of education by
putting every ounce of my being into what I am doing, especially when it’s a dream job much like this
one. Americorp does what I do daily but on a national level and that is what astonishes me so much and
why I am so excited to have this opportunity to help others help themselves and the opportunity to
empower people with the knowledge and tools they need to better their lives.

I am a very enthusiastic peer that is excited to contribute to real world solutions with hard work,
attention to detail, excellent organizational skills, and great teamwork skills. I am motivated to learn
grow and excel in every way; bringing optimism, empathy and understanding to add to the team. I am
quick and eager to start helping those around in any way possible, incredibly hard working and
completely committed to helping my community in any way I can. I am also very ambitious to learn the
newest ways in which I can connect and better serve my community!

I am an avid writer and performer of my poetry. It’s mainly inspirational, drawing from my personal
struggles with mental illness, triumphs, hope and how ridiculous having mental health problems actually
is (because the best medicine is laughter) but I have also used those writing skills to help write grants for
myself, and to help the applicants of grants and scholarships. Although that’s not all that writing is to
me, to me writing is about self care, coping and helping myself and other express themselves in a open
creative safe space. It’s about seeing and helping new comers out of their shell. I also adore making and
listening to music and learning new things. Currently I am learning the piano, the ukulele, Irish, ASL and
Japanese. I regularly attend free lectures given by different organizations, colleges and universities on
everything from the newest DBT treatments to trying to calculate the existence of dark matter. Libraries
are my best friend, much like the internet they have anything and everything you could ever need plus
customer service from amazing people who love knowledge just as much as you do.

Another hobby of mine, that I created accidentally, is supplying supplies for the game Dungeons and
Dragons to a few dozen hospitals. It started off just me and my best friend Gabby talking about how
amazing the game would be to teach kids with mental health problems and how big of a tool it could
actually be and how much of a difference it could make not only in peoples recovery but through being
able to express themselves with role play. We thought it would be easier for them to really open up
especially if it was in the form of a completely original, designed for the audience game that is not only
attention grabbing but extremely immersive. Our idea started off as a go fund me, making a few phone
calls to a number of locally owned stores and by posting a few posts on a few different Facebook groups
and it took off. She was frequently busy having a full time job so I took over. I ended up raising enough
funding to supply a little over 30 facilities from rehabs and crisis houses to mental health facilities and
outpatient programs. I went in and taught someone on the full time staff at each facility how to teach
them how to play and how to either run the game themselves or teach someone else to run it. This was
always my favorite; a lot of the time it’s the shy quiet ones that don’t talk much that end up creating the
most beautiful stories.

I was also once a professional rock climber and an assistant coach for a nationally ranked rock climbing
team. Climbing was an immense and important part of my life for a very long time. I was homeschooled
and I started climbing when I was 9 years old, my mom would drop me off at the gym and come back at
the end of the day after practice. I remember the feeling of realizing it was my first safe environment
where I could express myself doing something I loved. I would get up at 3 am to drive a quarter of the
way across the country for one of 8 competitions you had to do to qualify for regionals, train for
nationals for months, go to nationals and repeat. Climbing taught me discipline and loyalty, how to be
best friends with someone you compete against when you both want the ONE prize you both cant have.
I learned how to cheer on the very people who could be replacing me at nationals and learned to be
happy when it happened because it meant so much to them and they mattered to you. It taught me to
take care of myself first, because you can’t run on an empty tank. It taught me to listen because I wasn’t
always right and someone else could have a better way for you to reach your goal. I learned problem
solving and how to trust my feet when I can’t see them. It taught me how to trust myself, it taught me to
trust my teammates, how to work together with people that you didn’t get along with to achieve the
best outcome but most importantly, it taught me the importance of following your dreams, of hard
work, of never giving up and to look at the impossible like it was possible, because with enough work,
planning and skill it is possible….even if it takes you 7 years.

Coaching was an entirely different experience for me, instead of the pressure being on my performance
as a climber it put pressure on me to be a mentor, a guide, a confidant, a shoulder to cry on a homework
and work out enforcer. There was so much effort, time, and energy that went into it. You had to prepare
an individualized work out for 20 people to be done in a two-hour period at the same time. Each climber
has their own strengths and weaknesses, and my job was to make your strengths work for you and to
teach you to overcome your weakness. I taught my kids to compete with kindness and integrity and I
taught them how to carry that into their real lives too. I suddenly was a tutor, an instructor, a friend and
a protector. I would run practices weekly with the head coach meeting before hand to discuss the kids
progress, how they were doing, what the plan was to get them climbing better and what to plan for the
next week. Anorexia runs rampant in the rock climbing community so I made pre-practice team meals
you had to finish before stepping on the wall. I toured the world with my chosen family doing what I
loved most, climbing and teaching climbing.

Before that I was a nanny. I raised a 2-year-old, a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old. I was basically their
mother 24/7 because I was a live in caretaker. Those kids taught me love and patience, kindness,
understanding, empathy. My job included everything from waking them up in the morning for school
and making them breakfast, taking them to school and the park, museums, homework duty, cleaning,
cooking, laundry, and dance classes. It quickly taught me responsibility and time management. The
other thing that really stuck with me from that time is to go with the flow, if things don’t go as planned,
if a mistake is made or something happens, to breathe through it and think of the best possible plan of
action with a cool and calm head because you never knew what was going to happen. You had to come
up with the best solution to the problem in a short amount time. It also taught me how to be held
accountable for my actions and learn from my mistakes.
I started to go to school at Anne Arundel County Community College at 18 to get an associate degree in
psychology but unfortunately some health issues got in the way and I had to defer it until my health
issues were better. I attended AACC on and off until now (health permitting) doing transfer studies with
a Major is Psychology and a Minor in ASL from Towson hopefully in the year 2022. At the time of going
until recently I had a hard time keeping up due to my health but this year I managed to get my GPA to
above what I need to transfer into Townson University.

I guess a big thing to know about me is that I am chronically ill, both mentally and physically and have
been since I was a child. I have chronic Lymes Disease, a spinal fusion in my back that goes from my hips
to my shoulder blades that will require another surgery (but we can schedule that around working), a
seizure disorder as well as Generalized Anxiety Disorder. I had to learn fast ways to cope with
overwhelming emotions without making a scene, how to logically think through my emotions to figure
out what is causing it and using the best coping mechanism at my disposal. I have gotten very good at
powering through it but also knowing when I need to stop and take a breather before things get worse. I
stay educated on the latest up and coming therapies not only out of curiosity but for the interest of the
patient and myself.

The chronic illnesses have produced a lot of hurdles in my life, none of which have I ever faced without a
smile. From simple pain and recovery time from the to a lifetime of tendonitis in half of my body.
Between climbing and having to be homeschooled and without the ability to drive it has been hard for
me to hold down a job and consistently be able to make it to class on time. I began to become ill when I
was 7 and have been in and out of the hospital since. I started becoming homeschooled in the 5 th grade
and I was taught how to learn not what to learn. This taught me to pursue my dreams, it taught me to
be patient, that results take testing, trial runs, fails, recentering and restarting again. It taught me how
to solve long term problems without relinquishing any hope that it is possible. It taught me that you
might not be the “best” at what you do but you can always be the hardest working one and
perseverance will get you a lot further than just talent alone ever would. I was taught discipline,
balance, grace, hard work, responsibility and good decision making and this instills in me a sense of
pride in whatever work I do.

I think my personal lifestyle and set of skills uniquely provides me with an opportunity to truly
understand the problems our clients are facing today as well as all the red tape I learned non-profits and
charaties have to go and through, in order to do what they do. So not only do I get and understand why
they are as frustrated as they are with the programs and just how frustrated the workers are too with all
of the policies in place that make them feel like they aren’t allowed to help as they much as they want
to. In this way I can help mediate between the two and come up with comprehensive solutions that will
appease both sides as much as possible. I also can think about collective solutions from both points of
view with the comprehensive and personal knowledge of what could have helped, what did help and
what doesn’t personally help the situation. This time however I will be armed with the knowledge of
what I can do instead of winging it like I have been.

In short, I am a peer advocate that is one hundred precent committed to this job, her community, her
peers, her teammates, herself and the self she knows she can be. I know if you choose to interview and
then hire me it will be the best decision you have made at work to date. I will become the best of the
best no matter what I do, I have a drive to succeed and will dedicate my heart, soul, and my time to
making our team the best and most successful and helpful team it can be.