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Ex-resident shares about kids' home
Children’s Home of Lubbock is one of this year’s recipients of The Avalanche-Journal’s Goodfellows campaign, which accepts donations from readers to benefit charitable organizations.
Sherie Johnson lived at the home for several years, beginning when she was about 7. She is now 26.
Johnson shared some information about how the Children’s Home of Lubbock helped her.
¦ Your situation before the agency helped you: Johnson and her three brothers were in and out of foster care for many years. With their mother, they didn’t have food, clothes or shoes. The power would often get cut off. Johnson was placed with the Children’s Home of Lubbock when she was about 7 years old.
¦ What the agency did: Other than providing shelter, Johnson said it was wonderful to finally not be hungry. She could eat until she was full and there was an open pantry. The nutrition was vital to her and her brothers, she said.
“They saved my life,” Johnson said. “I wouldn’t be who I am.”
Additionally, she said living with people from varied backgrounds over several years exposed her to things she otherwise wouldn’t have been exposed to and opened her mind.
¦ Your situation now: Johnson went to college and is living a successful, productive life. She said she met some of her cousins after she left the home. Many of them had been in and out of jail and had children without a father in the picture.
The contrast of that life to her own was striking to Johnson.
“I got to see what I’ve become and what I could have become,” she said.
Logan G. Carver
18 December 2011
http://m.lubbockonline.com/local-news/2011-12-18/ex-resident-shares-about-kids-home
