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In reply to the discussion: I was a food stamp single mom and now I own my own business. [View all]bluestate10
(10,942 posts)My luck came when I was fourteen. I was a decent student, but not a world burner. Desperate to make some money, I walked to the employment office in my town and signed up for job opportunities. For several weeks nothing came up. One day I got a call from a man that lived in the upper-class part of my town. He needed someone to do yard work and saw my application where one of my skills was doing that type of work around home. I took the job, it paid minimum wage. The work was hard with long days. After watching me work for a few week and trying someone else, the home owner settled on me as the permanent helper. From that point, the man who was a honors graduate of one of the most prestigious universities in the country, became my mentor. I had never thought about what I wanted to become or how I would achieve my goals, my mentor challenged my thinking and threw out suggestions. Some of my days became life and choice lectures with me wanting to get back to the yard work. The mentoring worked, I became a focused student and finished near the top of my high school class. I went to college and became a scientist and eventually a technologist. I have done well financially and professionally, all because of a call out of the blue from a caring person.