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By MELINDA SACKS / Special
to the Mercury News
cornisha
Williams is self-conscious about her teeth and wants to get them
fixed, but it doesn't keep her from smiling.
Finally, her life is on track, says the 21-year-old college student,
flashing grin. But that wasn't always the case.
Williams' life has been punctuated with loss and hard times since
her dad died when she was 2. After struggling with homelessness
and living in a YWCA shelter for a time, Williams' mother moved
her three daughters and herself in with a pastor who seemed to be
a kind woman offering them a place to live. But the pastor turned
out to be abusive, frequently beating the sisters. Williams, 11
at the time, recalls thinking about suicide.
"My little sister was hungry and she went through the trash to
get some doughnuts,'' remembers Williams. The pastor beat her "really
bad.''
"I ran to my neighbor and said, 'You have to call the police.'
We went to foster care,'' says Williams. "My life was never the
same again.''
During her teen years, Williams and her sisters stayed in foster
care. But as she approached 18, she knew she would have to live
on her own, so she began to prepare. Williams enrolled in Alameda
County's Independent Living Skills Program, which provides services
to pre- and post-emancipated foster youth. She found her own place
to live in Fremont through Project Independence, run by the Tri-City
Homeless Coalition. Today, she works for ILSP and attends Ohlone
College, where she is studying business.
"I want to do a lot,'' says Williams with contagious enthusiasm.
"I remember what it is like to feel nobody understands you and nobody
wants you. My major goal in life is I want to build a mansion for
foster youth who other people have given up on. I want there to
be waterfalls and horses and loving staff and teachers so the kids
get an excellent education and get to do things like take piano
lessons, which I never had.''
A laptop
computer ($1,000) would make Williams' life easier, since the
commute from work in Oakland to school in Fremont keeps her on the
road from 7 a.m. until late at night.
Williams would love to pursue her passion for music and have some
vocal training (an adult class at the Community School of Music
and Arts in Mountain View costs $235
for six weeks). And having some dental work done after years
of being teased about her teeth as a child ($750)
would mean showing off that broad smile would no longer give her
pause.
For
more information, here are links to:
Tri-City Homeless Coalition;
Alameda
County's Independent Living Skills Program
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