My book on teaching organization to boys was released on Tuesday (visit www.thatcrumpledpaper.com for more info) and one of the questions I often receive is “Does Green Ivy work with girls?” Of course we do! And one of my favorite success stories is a young lady who called me on Monday to give me some GREAT news!
I worked with this young woman on a pro-bono basis for two years after we met at a Boys and Girls Club event in San Francisco. Over the course of two years, J. always found a way to get to my office, and managed to improve her grades and get good SAT scores despite some pretty big obstacles – she was supposed to be in the foster care system but had slipped through the cracks and spent the last two years of high school staying with her sister and her sister’s four-year-old twins. J. would get up at 5:30 to take three buses to get to school on time, and worked twenty hours a week to help out with the bills. Despite all those challenges, she is an incredibly positive, funny and charming young lady.
Last Christmas Eve, I surprised J. and picked her up and took her to Stacks in Menlo Park for breakfast before doing a little Christmas shopping. She was stressed about finishing her college applications and wondering how she would even pay for college. Her sister that she was living with was also unemployed and a single parent. I took a piece of paper (actually an old receipt) out of my pocket and had her write down her goals – which were 1. Get into college 2. Find a way to pay for college and 3. Have my sister get a job.
By April of that next year, J. had gotten into EVERY COLLEGE SHE APPLIED TO (all nine!) and gotten so many scholarships – that she managed pretty much a full-ride to her first choice school. And, her sister found a job!
Her first semester in college was rocky, but mid-way through she started to make friends… as well as organize herself and manage her time better (she was taking six classes AND working twenty hours a week). This past Monday, she called me to tell me the GREAT news - she received a 3.0 GPA her first semester!!
She came by my office yesterday, and I could instantly tell that her confidence had risen to new heights and that she now believed that college was where she belonged. More than the grades, I could tell she had started to believe in her own ability to succeed – which is priceless.