By Amy Friedman | Executive Director
When I read what she wrote, I knew not only would the kids appreciate her words, but I also knew how meaningful her words are for everyone who supports POPS. This is an excerpt of what she wrote:
"I joined POPS when I was a senior in high school and I’m going to be honest, I started going because of the food. Who wouldn’t want to have a good lunch rather than the lunch in the cafeteria, right? So I gotta say I tend to be a quiet person. I don’t speak much until I have gained full confidence in the people surrounding me. This time I made an exception to come and speak because I was once a student at Mark Twain Middle School, and while I was, I was going through so much, and there was no way of talking out what I felt. I was going through depression. I was diagnosed with Lupus, and I was home-schooled throughout 8th grade. I lost my memory. I don’t remember culminating. I only have a picture but a picture doesn’t bring back what I felt that day. Which brings me to the point of why we are here in this room today. We are here to express our feelings, to let everything out by writing it and allowing other people to read what we are going through.
"Many people see us and think we're ok--that we have a beautiful life with nothing to worry about. What they don’t see is our struggles. They only see the mask we wear every day. That's how I felt for years until I joined POPS. I felt ashamed of who I was, of where I came from. I was ashamed of people knowing that my dad was deported when I was 7. I was ashamed of being the daughter of a prisoner, the daughter of an alcoholic, the granddaughter of an alcoholic. Ashamed of being the cousin of guys who spent their time in and out of cells. It’s horrible feeling you have to live afraid that one day one of them won't come home. Having to keep all of that inside is hard.
"...I'd always act strong and pretend everything was all right, but there were days when depression overtook me. I’d lock myself in the bathroom, turn on the shower, put on some loud music and cry it all out and then come out as if nothing had happened. That’s the strategy I used before joining POPS.
Joining POPS helped me understand that I wasn’t the only one going through a situation like that. I wasn’t the only one with a family member in prison. I was so surprised when I saw many people I knew in the club.
...There’s a saying that appearances can be deceiving. And it’s true. You may see a person as happy, but in reality they’re dying on the inside. I always tried to be the type of girl who’d be there for people when they needed a friend. ...I'm here to tell you guys that you are not alone. There's no reason to be ashamed. We have to hold our heads up high and show the world we can be somebody new."Bringing a POPS club into a school is a gift of light and love, and as Leslie's writing makes clear, POPS allows kids to feel safe enough to speak up, to create, and to connect. That was the light and love she brought to the students at Mark Twain Middle School last May in a pilot program in collaboration with Cedars Sinai Trauma Center's Share & Care Program.
We are working to continue this partnership, and our POPS grads are leading the way. In fact, because of our donor support, POPS recently hired three of our graduates, Valeria De La Torre who has become our Volunteer Coordinator, Karen Arellano, our Communications Intern, and Victor Zapata, our Social Media Intern. With your support, we can continue to expand horizons.
We are ever grateful to be sharing this journey with you.
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