Momma I Made It!!!
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Montana (L) with fellow speaker Heather Mitts[/caption]
I am a very positive person... a "3/4" full kind of guy, believing that what I do matters. That working weird hours away from my family is worth it, that I make a lasting difference in my community. However, just about every single day, I sit at my desk, and need some sort of pep talk...and I usually go back to this story.
A couple of years ago, East Goshen Parks and Rec hosted an event called "Next Up", a night of female only speakers for a teenage female audience...a night of empowerment. It was well attended, the teenage participants were awesome, engaged and loved hearing stories from our State Representative Carolyn Comitta and U.S. Gold Medalist Heather Mitts (soccer).
Our opening speaker was Montana Leaks, an Allentown native (like myself), who was a senior at West Chester University, and its Student Body President. I met her in May before the event, signed her up, and then didn't give it another thought until the event approached.
She emailed me about two weeks before the Next Up event, and asked if her mother could come. "Of course!" was my response...but I couldn't help notice further down in the email stream a subject line of "Momma I Made It!"...
Immediately following our meeting in May, she emailed her family with "Momma I Made It!" in the subject line. Her email then went on to speak of sharing a stage with a State Representative and U.S. Olympian...you could almost see her chest swell with pride in the email, it was awesome!
I take encouragement in knowing that my department played a significant role in her realizing her efforts towards excellence had paid off. She was no longer working towards being accomplished, she knew that she was accomplished. Montana now believed in her own personal efficacy...powerful stuff! She is now in graduate school, and I am sure doing splendidly well. I hope all of us as people have had that moment, that wonderful moment of personal clarity where we instantaneously know that we belong, that its our moment, that we made it!