I didn’t know who to expect when I went to meet Angela for the first time. However, as her bright smile walked toward me, I couldn’t help but feel good about our pending conversation. Her hair was sprinkled with gray, what many would call stars in her crown of glory. These were her only sign of age. She wore a brilliant smile and gentle eyes, which drew me in.
“I was a mother of two by the time I was 18 years old,” Angela recalls of the year she graduated from University City High School in West Philadelphia. This massive responsibility was something Angela took in stride—she was one of four children in a single parent household and was accustomed to shouldering responsibility and taking care of people. Her life up until that point was not a story of misfortune, but one of determination—a story of beating the odds. But within a few years, after job losses, a painful, bitter separation from her husband, the deaths of several family members, and a diagnosis of breast cancer, Angela was left to wonder who would take care of her. “I had this feeling like I was in a carwash. You know how when you go to a carwash and you put the car in neutral and give up all control? I was that car.”
Angela stayed in that carwash for three years. Despite working with programs like the Philadelphia Unemployment Project (PUP) and Women in Transition’s Sister Circle, Angela still struggled to find a sense of hope or opportunity. However, on one particularly sad day, Angela set out for a walk up 60th Street, and had an experience that she says proved to be her personal salvation.
“I was walking down 60th Street crying, and I looked up and saw a sign that said LIFT. I said to myself, ‘What’s this? I don’t know, but I’m going in, because I need a LIFT.’ Angela walked into LIFT-Philadelphia’s West office and met Site Coordinators Josh and Jordan, saying, “I mean to tell you—they saved my life.” She sat with the volunteers, whom she said offered her unconditional help. Together, Angela and the volunteers sharpened her résumé and targeted the most promising potential employers for her to seek interviews. They helped her set up an email account that she began using regularly in her job search. Angela told me that having access to a computer was critical to her success: “The fact that it was free was so important, because I can’t afford the internet. I used the computer a lot and looked for information on job training programs. I used these resources, and now I’ve been accepted to Thomas Jefferson’s Nursing Program.”
Angela can’t say enough about how impressed she is that LIFT has an office in her neighborhood. “I didn’t have to knock on the door, because it was open, and it’s always open.” Walking through that open door afforded her the opportunity to see her own potential, and guide her toward opportunities that could stabilize her life. “I got a job through LIFT that is helping to support me while I attend school. My mortgage was reduced with funds from the stimulus program that the volunteers identified would be helpful for me.” Drawing upon the energy she generated through her work at LIFT-Philadelphia, Angela is taking charge of her life; she is the block captain of her neighborhood and she works with youth at two local churches. Looking back, Angela now knows that when she walked into the LIFT-Philadelphia office that fateful day, it was the first day she came out of the carwash.
Angela says, “When I think of community, I think of hope that is not tapped…strong and intelligent people reentering society from prison, from unemployment. But these people don’t realize the hope within in them, and what LIFT has done is put the spotlight on that hope…”
