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Susan Martins (77) talks with a friend, Catherine Grella (21) about her travels to Italy and Israel in her early 20s, which she considers the highlight of her entire life. Susan's Story Susan Martins (77) talks with a friend, Catherine Grella (21) about her travels to Italy and Israel in her early 20s, which she considers the highlight of her entire life. Scroll to listen Susan's Story 00:00 / 03:08 Well, I'd always wanted to travel and I always wanted to go to Italy, and I had $2,000, but this was in 1969, and $2,000 went a lot farther in those days. And I found a little pencion which was in a perfect location. It was a block from the Arno, but it was in a very great place. It was like the best place to be in Florence, and I just explored Florence while I was there. I had never really thought about going to Israel because while I was born Jewish, I really didn't know anything about Israel except while I was living there. I read a book by Bruno Bettelheim, a psychologist, and it was about the Kabutz system in Israel, and I found it fascinating. And I felt like I wanted to go there. And in about January, I guess, I went to Israel. This was weird. It was the middle of the night when the plane landed in the airport in Tel Aviv, and I was sitting there waiting because the shuttle buses didn't go in to tell of the evening till six or seven in the morning. So I was just sitting, waiting. This plane came in and this bunch of people got off the plane and they started bending down and kissing the street. And then they came into the airport. They couldn't believe that they were there, and they were kissing the floor in the airport. And it turned out that they were Polish Jews who had survived the Holocaust. They were immigrating to Israel and they'd never been there before. And they walked in and to them it was coming home. At that time, I didn't know where I was going, but I knew I wanted to go to a Kabutz. And there's an office in Tel Aviv that sends volunteers from all over the world to volunteer on a Kabutz. And you work in the fields, or I worked in the laundry, ironing pants for months, but I also worked in the grapefruit fields, and I worked pruning plum trees at one point, and one point they assigned me this Kabutz, had a fruit stand on the road that the Kabutz was up the hill from. They put me there to work because a lot of tourists spoke English. Somebody said, are you Israeli? And I said, no, I'm American. And they said, you look as if you were born here. You look just like an Israeli, and it's wonderful to meet you. And I felt like I had come home, and I felt as if it was my country. That was the weird thing that I had never thought about Israel. I didn't really feel like a Jewish person, but I felt as if that was where I was from and it was really power.

< Back Nancy's Story After our mother died suddenly (due to complications of a childhood disease), our introverted father stepped in to raise three daughters (ages 14, 11, and 7) in the New Jersey suburbs. He was at work in Manhattan all day, but he ran a tight ship from afar. His steadfast devotion to us and his love of Broadway shows, the Great American Songbook, and American literature continues to supply me with uplifting lyrics, music, and other cultural touchstones. 00:00 / 04:01 Previous Next

< Back Jonathan's Story, 2024 00:00 / 04:23 Previous Next

Mary Young describes, in an interview with Hellen Muma, the cast-off treasures she discovered as a kid—and how those experiences turned her into a life-long collector. She shares a lesson learned from Louis Armstrong’s white handkerchief and remembers a great-aunt who influenced her with the gift of a corrugated gift box. Mary's Story Mary Young describes, in an interview with Hellen Muma, the cast-off treasures she discovered as a kid—and how those experiences turned her into a life-long collector. She shares a lesson learned from Louis Armstrong’s white handkerchief and remembers a great-aunt who influenced her with the gift of a corrugated gift box. Scroll to listen Mary's Story 00:00 / 02:19 So, I know you have a lot of collections, and you keep creating new ones. What are some examples and what made you become a collector? I remember really clearly we lived in a sorta like actually my father taught in a boys boarding school so we lived in a dorm and you would take ethe trash all the way down to the basement to put it in these bins and I was old enough to take the trash down I guess for my mother So i as taking the trash down I went down to the trash room and I saw all this stuff and there was an older couple who worked was on the faculty and they were downsizing and they had piles of stuff and I was immediately really interested in it that was my earliest memory of finding extraordinary things in the trash and I’ve never stopped ever since When I was going through my paternal grandmothers stuff Among all the other stuff I found was a box of buttons I mean some of them were really old some go back to the 19th century and some buttons from when my grandmother during world war 2 was a part of the red cross ambulance driver corps ya know outside of Boston she didn't drive ambulances really but for some reason these women trained for that there were just and there were buttons they came from all different types of people now just women but mostly women the family and ya know from generations of all different people and I think I was already collecting antique buttons and I kind of dumped everything together and I would come up with some buttons from my mother and I’d put those in there and to me it's like this ocean of family history particularly for me of women history and it just is like it all flowed together into this soup and i just love that ya know I have made some things with the buttons like I've decorated some pillows with them I was thinking of framing some maybe I'll do it maybe I won't It's such an immediate connection to generations of women and its different as if I just got something from a tag sale cause this actually had to do something with people in my family who knows what but that's one example of potentially thousands I can tell

< Back Kathleen's Story 00:00 / 04:16 Yeah. So, Sarah's my second child. And, and I feel like just to bring her into the world, when I was pregnant, I actually knew who she was. You know, I remember thinking if they say, oh, you have a little boy, I would have said, no. That's Sarah. She was named and all before she came. It's my grandmother's name. So, I knew her, and I expected her. So, she came out as Sarah, and she has been, just a little one who has been on her own. So, she had her own way of doing things. And she occasionally would look back at me, but she knew where she wanted to go all her life. She had a she had a path and she was easily stepping into new things. She was 16. She had a boyfriend. And of course, I wasn't really happy with him. He was a year older than her, and he was like this wild guy. And I thought, not for my sweet little one. I wasn't real supportive of that, but, and turns out, he is just the best person ever to be in our family. So, they ended up getting married. Sarah actually wore my mother's wedding dress. So, she continued with that tradition of a traditional wedding dress. At their at their wedding, they honored my parents. It was their fiftieth wedding anniversary. So, it was just, just such proud moments that she has created, and she created her wedding. I made, I crocheted this netting that went over an arch, and it had silk leaves on it because she wanted to be she loved being in the woods and the forest, and she wanted to have an autumn wedding, but she was married in April. So, this kind of gave that gesture of her being married in the forest. And that was just, yeah, just lovely to offer to her. And so, they got married and lived in the same town we did. She, yeah, she doesn't knock on my door very much saying, mom, this is what I'm doing, or she doesn't she has a lovely relationship with her husband. Yeah. She didn't come to me for problems or things like that. So, they decided they wanted to move away, and they went to all different places in the country. And it just didn't feel right. So, I knew about North Hampton, and I found this Airbnb, and I gave them this gift of coming up for the weekend to check it out, and they loved it. So, they moved up here and started their life. And after two years, I would come up and stay with them, you know, for the weekend. And that was so lovely to live with someone rather than just visit. So, to spend a little time with them and see their world. Yeah. And after two years, they said, why don't you and why don't you and dad come up? Just move up here. So, I'm a smart mama. And when my daughter asked me to go somewhere, I do it. So, we figured out how to do it. So, we came up. We moved up here and continued to, to do our work. And we came and they found a house and we're three blocks from them. And the wonderful thing about that is eventually, Sarah's forty four now, they eventually, had a little a little boy who is a foster boy that they, that they had at three months old, and then they adopted him. And so, we came into this as a family. So now I'm a granny, and the best thing about being a granny is she drops him off, and I get to see my daughter, and we get to chat. And then she picks him up, and we get to chat some more. But my real conversation comes from her husband who tells me every single thing that's going on Previous Next

< Back Bob's Story, 2024 Bob shares the challenges he faced in high school and how he discovered his passion for the arts, which changed his life direction. 00:00 / 04:23 Did you have any moments in high school that changed the way you saw yourself and or how others saw you? Yeah. I sure did. And, that's one of the reasons I feel like we, you know, we found a, you know, a beginning of a shared, you know, experience in our relationship. So, I'll do a little bit like what you did, a little history. Yeah. So around 13, you know, so a little bit before high school, I always tell people the same image. I felt like a brown burlap sack was pulled over my head. You know? Like, the world became fuzzy, and there was a little bit of light, but it wasn't clear. It was really hard and confusing for me, and my experience in high school is very similar. I saw myself as incredibly shy. I was very, very anxious. I didn't go through a period of not going to school because my parents would let me do that, period. I was getting up, and I was going to school, and that's all there was to it. I was very alone in school. I could probably pick out one or two names from my high school experience that were became friends, but I didn't have real friends. Then I didn't socialize. I didn't date. I didn't hang out with people. I didn't go to parties at school. I also had an eating disorder at that time. So, you know, when I was, I couldn't even eat in front of other people. I'd go to the cafeteria because they need me. It wasn't till I think I think junior or senior year, they allowed us to stay in our class or our homeroom during lunch. We didn't have to go. The way I saw myself is someone that was very anxious, very alone, really confused about that whole thing about the burlap bag. Just didn't I couldn't interreact react interact with people in a way that I would like to. I mean, I did some stuff. I was, you know, got on the high school newspaper, but that was very cerebral. You know, if you've gotten to know me, I'm a people person, but I sure wasn't then. And then I was lucky enough. What happened to me, the experience that began to change that for me was in the first semester of my junior year. We were required in my high school to take public speaking. It was a required class. The assignment was a humorous speech. I guess I saw myself in my head as funny. I don't know if I am funny, but and so I really dug. This project somehow spoke to me. I got up. We were allowed to hold the material. It wasn't memorized. Somewhere early in the speech, I began to notice this amazing thing was happening was that people the the other kids in the audience, the other students were laughing like crazy. I mean, they were falling on the floor, and the teacher was laughing. And it gave me this incredible sense of power. I'm really, I think that's the right word. This incredible sense that I had something in me that, I didn't really realize, that I could be really funny, that I could entertain other people, that this person that was super quiet and hiding in the corner all of the time and not even eating in front of other people could begin to change that. Right? And, it really did have this profound effect on me. This same teacher directed a a play the second semester called the Thurber Carnival, and it worked. She said, why don't you come try out? You're really funny, and it would be great. So I came and I tried it out, and she cast me. And, so here I am up in front of an audience of, you know, 800 or a thousand people, all of a sudden, this super shy person. And all of a sudden, I had this whole experience around the arts, which actually became my passion late in life. But what was important about it was it gave me the sense of myself in a different way. So, it was a beginning. It wasn't the end. Like you said, you had a long way to go Yeah. After that And for me, I had a long way to go too. I was still super shocked. And I also I guess I discovered that being you know, you didn't touch on this as much, but on your family, but being away from my crazy family allowed me to really grow more. I came to UMass like you did. And when I came back for the first break at intersession, my parents didn't know who I was. They said, what happened? I had grown into this other person. For me, the high school that that experience of that classroom began to change my whole life, my inner sense of who I was and what I was capable of. Previous Next

Listen to stories from Spring 2022. Aidan's Story Aidan talks with Barbara about his family heritage and shares the meaning of his tattoos and their connection to his family. Listen Amy's Story Amy shares about moving from NYC to Philadelphia as a young girl. During this time, she learned some of the hard lessons about hatred and what it means to stand out. She also learned that some of her closets friends are the ones who have the most differences between them. Listen Barbara L's Story Barbara discusses the important friendships that she has maintained in her life, and how over a lifetime of working in film and theatre, she has maintained these relationships while also achieving her dreams of working on set. Listen Barbara S's Story Barbara shares her story of becoming the owner of a bookstore, specializing in antique books. She shares memories from these years including her knowledge of books. Listen Bert's Story Roberta Liebman shares with Alisson Aleman the remarkable role that neighborhood organizations have played in some of the most significant moments of her life. They have provided her and her family with support and companionship through some of the most challenging moments. Listen Betty's Story Betty talks about her gratitude and appreciation for the support she has received during hard times in her life. Listen Marci's Story Listen Camille's Story Camille details her relationship with her siblings and the importance that they play in her life and how they have helped her get through her toughest challenges. Listen Catherine's Story Catherine Grella (21) talks with a friend, Susan Martins (77) about her close relationship with her two sisters, her childhood, and the family dynamics that have shaped her into the woman that she is today. Listen Dennis's Story In his story, Dennis Bidwell guides us through his harrowing journey applying for Conscientious Objector (CO) Status during the Vietnam War. Dennis reflect on his coming of age, the culture of the 1960's and 70's, and his experience writing "the most important essay of [his] life" Listen Edie's Story Edie Kirk shares stories with Elise Boehm about her mother. She starts off by talking about her family’s background and her mother growing up. She then shares a story about how her mother became a nurse and shares other stories that show why she admires her mother so much. Listen Elise's Story Elise Boehm talks to Edie Kirk about her decision to study abroad in Cuba and what it was like once she got there. She shares stories about where she went and what she did but also how the people there made her feel more confident speaking Spanish. Listen Hellen's Story Hellen describes the way her house represents Africa from the mustard-yellow color on the outside to the smell on the inside and the white lace sheets over the doors. Her parents incorporate many pieces of Kenya with them in their home in the US, and continue many traditions from their past. Listen Jonathan's Story Jonathan Daube (Northampton, MA) speaks with Selena DeCosta (Easton/Amherst, MA) about his time spent teaching in Malawi and how it shaped his view of the world for the rest of his life. Listen MJ's Story In this interview, Mary Jo discusses her experience with assistive technology like a cochlear impact and electronic captioning. She describes her journey and how sudden hearing loss has influenced her as an individual, her relationships and her outlook on life. She leaves us with a powerful message about the importance of advocating for ourselves and others. Listen Mary's Story Mary Young describes, in an interview with Hellen Muma, the cast-off treasures she discovered as a kid—and how those experiences turned her into a life-long collector. She shares a lesson learned from Louis Armstrong’s white handkerchief and remembers a great-aunt who influenced her with the gift of a corrugated gift box. Listen Marylou's Story Marylou Davis (76) talks with her granddaughter, Abigail Horan (21) about the pivotal moments in her life which sculpted the path to the life she has today. In the interview, Marylou discusses how moving from Florida back to Massachusetts where she originally lived was a tough decision, but ultimately worked out in the end because of the relationships she fostered once arriving back. Listen Ngozi's Story Ngozi Okeke talks to Tamar Shadur about traveling to Nigeria, dad's special pancakes, and how she would like to be remembered Listen Nikki's Story Nikki describes her travels to Manzanillo Cuba where she and her fellow volunteers created and conducted a Kids Camp for the children of Manzanillo and its surrounding villages. She expresses the importance of perspective taking, treating others with compassion and understanding the true impact one seemingly small act can have on the lives of others. Listen Liya's Story Liya Liang speaks with Nina Kleinberg about her experiences attending a preparatory boarding school and leaving all she knew behind. The two discuss the effects that it had on her life reflecting on the aspects of race, class, and socioeconomic status had on her experience during her four years. Listen Nina's Story Nina Kleinberg tells Liya Liang the story about the moment she decided to leave her home and STEM education to pursue an education and career in film on the other side of the country Listen Samantha's Story Samantha talks about her childhood and her appreciation for her Jewish heritage and her understanding of her family history and how it shaped her experiences through life and helped her to face her toughest challenges. Listen Sasha's Story Sasha talks about her relationship with her Aunt and how she inspired her to be strong, powerful, and resilient and to appreciate the values that they share. Listen Savannah's Story Savannah speaks with Dennis about her experience living and working in Washington, DC the summer after her freshman year of college. Savannah discusses her determination to experience somewhere new, and how she was able to make it happen for herself. In her story, she touches on themes of loneliness, independence, family and friendship. Savannah reminds us that while independence is a virtue, we can all use some support to get where we're going. Listen Selena's Story Selena speaks with Jonathan about what it’s like to be living with a family whose views are very different from your own during a global pandemic. Listen Susan's Story Susan Martins (77) talks with a friend, Catherine Grella (21) about her travels to Italy and Israel in her early 20s, which she considers the highlight of her entire life. Listen Grazy's Story Grazy discusses how her family's immigration to the United States impacted her upbringing and her values and experiences in the U.S. Listen Sean's Story Sean talks to his match about the differences between them and their values caused by the differences in their cultures and generations. He also discusses the impact of American values and how media and modern technology play a role in individualism. Listen Katherine's Story Katherine talks about her family heritage and values and how that impacted her views on the world. She discusses how her upbringing and playing music with her siblings brings them closer together. Katherine also details how the values that she was raised with are still instilled in her and are instilled in her children as well. Listen Gail's Story Gail, an elementary school teacher, talks about how her sister impacted her life and encouraged her to advocate for children with disabilities in her classroom and beyond. Listen Sofie's Story Sofie talks about her experience being diagnosed with diabetes at the age of 12 and how it affected her and her family. She discusses how it inspired her to pursue her future career and the importance of empathy in the medical field. Listen Liam's Story Liam talks about a scene in the movie Tampopo and discusses the differences in how people consume media and how media can be interpreted differently depending on the viewer. Listen Susy's Story Susy talks about her want for a child and how it led her to her experience with international adoption in Peru as a single woman. She discussed the impact of negative cultural views on adoption and how it impacted her experience as a parent. She then discusses the importance of belonging and the need for people to share their stories. Listen Hannah's Story Hannah talks about the risk that she took in studying abroad in Amsterdam and her experience amercing herself in the culture by herself and how it impacted her future career path. Listen Tamar's Story Tamar Shadur talks to Ngozi Okeke about how she would like to be remembered through the different ways in which she lived her life. She discusses her artistic passion for tapestry weaving and how it became a lifelong career. She was able to emphasize the different themes that have come out in her work and how she and her Mother have worked together to produce meaningful pieces. Listen Spring 2022 Stories If you'd like to listen to a story, click the "Listen" button.

< Back Kathy's Story Kathy reflects on her journey to becoming a nurse practitioner, shaped by early aspirations to be a doctor and barriers such as her father’s belief that higher education wasn’t necessary for girls. Despite challenges, she pursued nursing, continued her education, and eventually entered a nurse practitioner program with encouragement from mentors. Her career focused on working with individuals with intellectual disabilities, where she found purpose in serving marginalized populations and navigating the complexities of real-world care. Looking back, she feels deeply fulfilled and proud of her path, valuing both the impact of her work and the personal growth it brought. 00:00 / 03:15 I'm a Nurse Practitioner, and the majority of my career has been with people with intellectual disabilities and then an aging. When I was a kid, I always wanted to be a doctor, and I don't even know why that was. I have two uncles that are doctors, so I was set to be a pediatrician. I mean, they encourage me, but my father at the time thought education was wasted on girls. I mean, I was encouraged to go on, you know, for things either pre-med or, you know, going to the nursing for UMass, you know, program. And, but my dad, you know, because it was okay, my uncle's gonna keep an eye on me in the Pittsfield area. It was a three-year program in Pittsfield, and then I was working in a hospital. And then when my first husband was going to UMass, we moved back here now. So the minute I graduated from Saint Luke School nursing, I started at different community colleges, taking courses, and I had ended up going to Elms College and get my baccalaureate. I worked at Belchtown State School. It was people with intellectual disabilities. And I knew I wanted to stay in nursing and do something. And I, you know, not that I didn't want to teach, but I wanted to go into a little bit more some kind of clinical nursing. And I knew about the nurse practitioner program. So at the time, the first year when I was at the state school, they would send people to PNP program. And back then, it wasn't even a college; it was a “continuing ed program.” The first year I put in for, they didn't accept me. So the next year, the man who was my boss at the time, he encouraged me to go. And of course, everybody was saying, “Oh, she's part of the agreement when they sent you to school with you, you have to work for the state for a year after.” And I was committed to doing that because somebody believed in me. So I started, and I worked. I've worked with people with intellectual disabilities. As an NP, there's something about you make a difference, you know, especially when you work with marginalized, or people that are typically devalued. And it was really, it was really an eye opener. And as an NP, I could just do about anything there because the Doc, he was glad to have me do the work. And I was, I was relishing doing the work, you know, trying to figure things out. And I learned a lot, especially in real life, where it's complicated. It's not like what the books say to you, you know, it's really complicated. And I can remember that was in my nursing, basic nursing and was really difficult. And, but, you know, you persist, and you're right, your classmates and people are really good, they can be, and there's something about the camaraderie of being together in the same boat. But, you know, I, that's why I really like people's stories and spending time and being in the moment with people. But, you know, there's something about being there and learning and stuff that I learned was just, oh, it's just made me much more critical thinker. But now, you know, retrospectively, I'm so glad I'm a nurse. I am so happy I'm a nurse, you know, and what I hear for, you know, primary care and specialists, it's, it's a crazy world out there. It's just difficult. In fact, a lot of people say, you know, I come up and, you know, I'm not afraid to approach difficult situations. But you really, I mean, I, I love being a nurse. Previous Next

< Back Ali's Story Ali speaks to Joan about her journey of being adopted. She talks about her mom and her sister and how they became a family. She speaks on how knowing a brief background of her biological family gives her some comfort. Scroll to listen 00:00 / 03:28 Yeah so I was adopted when I was 1 year old I think at the time my mom was living with my sister in Hong Kong and the adoption agency had sent her photos of a few children so she sorta got to see them and she could pick which one she wanted which sounds really weird but those are just the children who are available for adoption at the time and she ended up choosing me who knows why but here I am and when everything was final she actually flew down to Vietnam to bring me home everything was pretty much facilitated through the embassy so she had a lot of help in bring me home and it wasn’t too strenuous just for herself she was actually able to meet my birth parents which is something that a lot of people don’t can't really say that their biological parents and their adoptive parents met in person and yeah she met my mom and dad and she tells me that my birth parents couldn’t keep me anymore because they didn’t have the funds to feed me and my mom was crying and my dad was just kind of there but just knowing that is really special because a lot of kids once again they don’t have that they don’t have that memory so my mom said that I have multiple siblings so I guess I was just the one kid that wasn’t able to be fed at the time so it's interesting to know that I have like other siblings out there and my mom also has a photo of me and my biological mom of just her carrying me which is kind of crazy cause I don't know my sister is also adopted from Vietnam just from the south and she doesn’t have any recollection of like anything from her history I think these little details definitely changed the way i feel about adoption in comparison with other adoptees cause many adoptees get left behind you know left at a door step something like they they don't have any memories but there biological parents can say they know and my sister she's also adopted like I said and she was given up right after birth so she doesn't know anything about who her family is or how many siblings she had or anything like that and I think the fact that my family tried to take care of me for like a year was sort of reassuring that I was cared for its something that I am grateful for and other adoptees can't say that they have that same experience and they live their life not knowing what their birth parents truly thought of them which can very it can be stressful and impact their life so just knowing I was cared for was really important for me Previous Next

< Back Marisa's Story Marisa shares how her mother’s cancer diagnosis and subsequent passing profoundly influenced her life and career aspirations. Witnessing her strength and the care provided by nurses inspired her to pursue nursing, initially through fundraising and advocacy, then by formally studying healthcare. Though faced with challenges in transferring and entering a nursing program, Marisa used the opportunity to study kinesiology and public health, gaining foundational skills for her future practice. Now preparing to enter an accelerated nursing program, she is committed to providing compassionate care in honor of her mother’s legacy. 00:00 / 03:21 So today, I would like to share a story of someone who changed the course of my life. And that person is my mom. In November of 2018, when my mother, a very caring person, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, the diagnosis devastate our family. And she was an active occupational therapist who loved and cared for anyone and everyone. So this impacted us a lot. She lit up every single room she walked in. She spread kindness and cared for all the kids that she worked with. And it was really hard for us to understand why such a good woman who had served many with love had to be afflicted with such a monster. My father encouraged my sister and I to stay strong and be with my mom. At that moment, I had a strong urge to do something more for my family. I helped out as much as I could, so she could save her strength through things which mattered most to her. However, the emotional toll this brought me with significant feeling overwhelmed with sadness and fear. Pancreatic cancer is notoriously difficult to detect, leading to lower survival rates, so the resilient stories of others diagnoses and disease inspired my family and I to join the Pancreatic Cancer Action Network. Um, me and my family, we went on to raise money for research to spare other families from going through what we were. And I organized awareness campaigns, such as distributing “PanCan” bracelets to my high school soccer team, and we wore purple ribbons in our hair during our games. Thanks to community support of our effort, we attained Top 10 status in New England for fundraising. And, um, I was able to attend some of my mom's chemotherapy sessions, which was my exposure to the kind of care that the nurses showed, and their commitment inspired me to move beyond fundraising. I wanted to be on the front lines helping people, just like her, navigate their health battles. Unfortunately, despite the ongoing treatment and great support, she passed away in February 2022. Her strength became yet another source of inspiration. My commitment to nursing became even more transparent, and I knew that I had to fulfill my dream for her and make her proud. In fall 2020, I started my nursing education at Merrimack College, full of eagerness. It wasn't too long before I realized that the setting wasn't quite right for me, which led me to the difficult decision of transferring to UMass Amherst for my sophomore year. When applying to UMass, I discovered that I was unable to directly transfer into the nursing program, something that was very disappointing at the time because I had planned on fulfilling my passion for nursing. That and there, I accepted that challenge by embracing this as an opportunity to explore related fields, such as kinesiology and public health, that could better prepare me for a future nursing path. These studies have been foundational in building my perspectives of health and wellness while affording me the opportunity to develop important skills that will be valuable in my commitment, my nursing career. My commitment to nursing has only been instead intensified. As I approach the end of my studies in public health at UMass this fall, I will begin a new chapter as an accelerated nursing student here at UMass, taking the next step toward my goal of becoming a compassionate, skilled nurse. I am entering this field, not just as profession, but as a calling. One where I will treat patients with empathy, dignity, and respect, honoring my mother's memory and the lessons of strength that will be forever be within me. I know I will make her proud, and I carry her spirit with me as I fulfill the dream we both believed in. Previous Next

< Back Caroline's Story Caroline talks about her experience with working at Camp Sunshine and how it has impacted her. She talks about her work with the kids there with Fanconi Anemia. She talks about how working with these kids has inspired her career path in the future. 00:00 / 02:45 One time in my life that has been really influential that definitely will stick with me my whole life has been volunteering at camp sunshine, and it's for children with life threatening illnesses. So the model of the camp is that every week is a different illness, so I always go for Fanconi Anemia or FA. So all the kids there have FA or they’re their siblings and then the parents go too. And during the week the parents go to information sessions and they learn about clinical trials and they go to support groups and talk to doctors and things like that. And then the children are just supposed to be regular kids, so for once in their life if they’re ill, it’s like, not a barrier for them. So, they get special equipment so they can still swim, we play board games like normal, we roast s’mores, we climb on the rock wall together, we play volleyball, we go out on the lake, and we kayak, and we paddleboard, and things like that. And I’ve done it three years. I did it in highschool, I used to go for a week every summer, and it was like the most life changing experience for me. Because my sister had done it in highschool so I knew that it would be fun, I just was really nervous. And I went to camp sunshine and I fell in love with the experience. The volunteers were so excited to be there and everybody had a shared goal of just wanting to help the kids have the best week of their summer. And then the kids are really inspiring because they’ve had such hardships and they’re so young, like I was working with 6 to 8 year olds and 9 and 12 year olds, and they’ve experienced way more than I ever have, because I’ve been very blessed with great health. And seeing their resilience was so inspiring and then also, such a learning opportunity because in those populations it’s really easy to be like, just to focus on someone’s strength but it’s really important to see them as, like, a full person and that, you know if you’re 6 years old then you have a chronic illness, you’re still 6 years old. So you still have to be treated like a kid and you have to play and you have to run around, and if you get scrapped it might be bigger deal than if a different kid gets scrapped, but we have to deal with that because you still should have a full childhood, so getting to help them with that experience and give their parents rest and time to find support, was really, really amazing. It definitely has influenced how I see my career path and the work that I want to do because I really wanna benefit that population in particular. Previous Next

Ivana shares a vulnerable story about her battle with anxiety and depression as a young adult in high school. She talks about how her experiences have influenced who she is today and memorializes this struggle with a tattoo on her back. Ivana's Story Ivana shares a vulnerable story about her battle with anxiety and depression as a young adult in high school. She talks about how her experiences have influenced who she is today and memorializes this struggle with a tattoo on her back. Ivana's Story 00:00 / 04:12 There is a saying, I'm not sure if you've come across it, where when it goes: “Trauma builds character”. And I definitely feel like that is something that is very true for me and how I've been able to see the world differently. There were a lot of traumatic things that I was exposed to at a young age and then also experienced myself. And I feel like the culmination of all of that led to a very, very dark point that started in high school, my junior year. That was when I first realized what anxiety was and what depression was because the symptoms were actually starting to appear within myself. And it took a lot of solitude and because… When I was going through a lot of that stuff in high school, I felt like I couldn't have any, or I didn't have anybody that I could turn to. And for a while, I wholeheartedly owed my existence for me still being here to my sister, honestly, because during that same period where I felt like I couldn't rely on my parents or couldn't rely on my friends and stuff and I kind of in turn only relied on myself. My sister, I didn't even ask her to help me - she kind of just saw and she offered her help. And I feel like that was the first person that really like listened to me, tried to really find resources to get me in treatment and stuff. My sister also has like a very mature mentality as well. So I feel like there's conversations that I was able to have - that she would be able to contribute to in a way that a lot of other people couldn't. And I think it got to a point of me realizing that a lot of what I was feeling was consequences of certain habits that I was either doing or certain habits that I had in terms of my mindset and stuff. So I went through a very transitional period of trying to really fix my mind and instead of have it be an enemy, turn it into my friend. And now that I think about it, I feel like this habit was something that was kind of enforced in me because I wasn't an athlete for so long. Like we would have to go back, for example, on my basketball team, we would have certain days where we would go watch films from my previous games and stuff like that. And at that point, you're literally going through past mistakes that you made, your coach is telling you what you did wrong, and here's how to fix it for the next time. And I feel like it could be as simple as that for situations. And I feel like that is my intention of wanting to share my story. One, I never thought that life would be like this. There was a good year/two-year period where I thought by the time I was 18, that would have been the end of my life. I'm very blessed every single day to be living the life that I do and to have the opportunity to experience life in the way that I do. I feel like I would not have been able to want to have this for everybody in life until I was able to learn a lot of things through solitude and go through those hard times to become more empathetic and become more emotionally understanding and being able to be more gracious to people and stuff. I do have a tattoo on my back that says, no rain, no flowers. And that is a tattoo that I live by because especially from that hard period of time, I'm able to experience true beauty now. And you cannot experience the beauty of flowers without having a little rain. Previous Next