The Broken Dish

As a teen girl with a mother on drugs and and absent father, I was broken. I can recall when I was 14, I went around telling people I was pregnant for the attention. I was crying out, lost, neglected and confused. Like this dish, my life was broken and upside down!

It's funny because my mother had me when she was 14. She turned 15 three days later. I wonder if she was feeling these same emotions. She had a mother who worked and a stepdad who worked but I wonder if she was missing the love?

I conceived for the first time at age 31. By this time, I had traveled to Aruba, Dominican Republic, Miami, New York, Philadelphia, St. Thomas and the US Virgin Islands, California, New Jersey, South Carolina and North Carolina.

I had received a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Management and received several Business Development Certificates.

I also started a mentoring and summer camp for 7 girls within my community who were not in summer camp or school. Didn't want them being bored!

After giving birth to my daughter, Sami Damia, I received a Master's in Business Administration, was certified by NIH and HUD as a community educator-Cardiovascular Disease Prevention for HOPE VI Projects and other organizations, communities and individuals who would receive the information, traveled to Disney World, Florida and received my nonprofit 501 (c) (3) status from the IRS. Sami D. is now two thinking she is the boss! As a single mother, it's a struggle but thank God for those who consistently help me with her: her dad, my mother (who has been clean from crack cocaine for 11 years now!) and my 72 year old grandparents.

Future goals consists of, but are not limited to, being trained as a day care provider to provide instructional homeschooling for toddlers, becoming an art & culture instructor-taking honor students around the world to broaden their minds about art & culture, earning a Ph.D. in Epidemiology fighting against children obesity & asthma, being a motivational speaker and owning a boutique all while instilling principles and values in the thoughts of abused and neglected teens.

The road has not been easy but to God be all the glory! He fixed a broken dish and made her into a Diamond in the Rut!

Ms. Little is the first in her family to graduate from college. And is her grandmother's first grandchild (of 34+ grandchildren) to graduate from high school.