Bonus Clip: A Chair-ity Success Story

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In this bonus to our conversation with Maria Paparella, Maria shares a personal story of one of the young adults she deeply connected with through her organization Chair-ity. This young adult faced several challenges as she aged out of the foster care system and started life on her own. But with her perseverance, strength, intelligence, and support from Maria, she has become one of the many Chair-ity success stories. This organization truly makes a difference, one person at a time. 

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Episode Transcript

Diane Bickett (00:00):
Enjoy this bonus clip of our conversation with
Maria Paparella of Chair-ity Inc.
Here Maria shares a verypersonal story of one of the
young adults that she has helpedin her work and that young
person's impact on her.
Do you have a couple successstories you'd like to share with
us?

Maria Paparella (00:16):
Yeah, depends on how much time you have.

Diane Bickett (00:18):
This is for how many I can share.

Maria Paparella (00:20):
Um, I will share one that hopefully I do
not tear up.
Um, because I am so extremelyproud by this young adult came
to us now it was about threeyears ago.
Um, she came to us right beforeher junior year of high school.

(00:43):
Um, she had just moved in toher first apartment at 18 years
old.
She was just about to startagain her junior year of high
school.
We delivered her furniture, gother set up I mean, it's you,
you know, not unlike what we doon a daily basis that we enter

(01:08):
the apartment, it's completelyempty.
Typically, you know, there's nofurniture and there are a few
trash bags of furniture and apillow and the blanket on the
ground and they're.
We get there and she may havebeen one of only a handful that

(01:32):
we've helped before their junioryear.
Usually it's before senior year, right after.
And we furnished her apartmentand, like I said, you know, the
fulfilling on promises doescreate such a strong connection
with us and my program managerwas there for that delivery and

(01:55):
she, you know, just startedasking for my program manager
for this and that and we reallyrealized, okay, were her primary
point of contact for her askingfor things.
Why, also, why isn't she askingher social worker different
social services agency that shewould be connected with Um again

(02:15):
.
She just started asking us forstuff and different things.
And you know, I think, likeanyone working in a nonprofit,
different kids will impact youin different ways, and some, for
some reason yeah, who knows whyyou will connect with, stick

(02:39):
with.
And she was one that I just waslosing sleep over.
I couldn't pinpoint it, Icouldn't figure out why, and so
we then, you know, flash forwarda few months.
We then had an upcoming eventand I was like you know what?
I think she has a reallyamazing story and I want to

(03:03):
share her story at our eventbecause I think it exemplified
what aging out of foster carewas how challenging it is, the
lack of support you have, howscary it can be living in a
place that you don't really know.
You know she chose to live inthat area so that she could stay

(03:26):
in that high school district,so she could finish high school
at that in that same high school.
Impressive, yeah, so impressive, instead of dropping out and
trying to do something else.
I mean just that choice alonein itself and trying to do
something else.
I mean just that choice alonein itself.
And so you know, we filmed herand filming is a pretty intimate

(03:46):
experience if you've ever doneit, and especially just sharing
your life story that's sovulnerable and you know, again,
was just like really connectedwith her and was just really
amazed.
And I already said, proud, butyou'll realize why I'm so proud
of her now.
But just even sharing her storywas so proud of her.

(04:09):
And then, you know, flashforward a few more months and we
had a donor reach out to us andsay, hey, we have a bunch of
these live Christmas trees thatwe used for an event.
We don't know what to do withthem.
We're just going to trash them,unless you have a few kids who

(04:30):
we could drop off Christmastrees at.
And so I was like, great, so wehad just recently served a
handful of young adults who hadchildren of their own and I was
like, okay, let's get them.
And then we had a handful leftand I was trying to figure out
you know kind of how to do itand what's fair and everything.

(04:51):
And I was like, okay, we needto do one because she did our
video.
So we dropped one off and I wastelling this donor about each
young adult that we deliveredthe Christmas tree to and why we
chose them to drop off theChristmas tree.
And she heard her story and wasalso really drawn to it and had

(05:16):
a handful of people donateChristmas presents to her and we
decorated or broughtdecorations for her tree.
And as we were dropping themoff, I was like, okay, have you
ever decorated a tree?
Do you want me to help?
You Like, have you ever put thelights up?
Do you need help?
And she's like, no, I've neverdone it before.

(05:38):
18 years had never decorated atree.
And so I spent, you know, thenext few hours with her,
teaching her how to put thelights on the tree and how to,
you know, put the little wirethrough the ornaments to then
hang up up and not to prickyourself a million times, which

(05:58):
I did.
And, um, and like we said it, weset it all up and put the
christmas presents under thetree.
And she's like this is the mostpresents I've ever had it was,
I think, four like not anythingsuper remarkable.
Um, and then, um, you know,flash forward a few more months,

(06:21):
her and I, you know, text everyonce in a while.
Then it was her senior year ofhigh school we're talking.
She now has a mentor that'sinvolved and you know she has
another person in her life andshe's, you know, slowly starting
to gain stability andunfortunately her mentor fell

(06:42):
through and we had to find heranother mentor.
Then it's now April of hersenior year and we're talking
about okay, what's graduationlook like?
I'm just asking her the funsenior year questions, or

(07:03):
questions that would be fun forme, while I was in my senior
year of high school and I askedher about graduation and I asked
her who was coming and what shewas doing and everything.
And she was like I don't thinkanyone's coming.
I was like what do you mean?
And you know, she doesn'treally have a support system.
And I am so lucky that I got tobe that support system for her

(07:31):
and then, you know, so luckythat then I got to be the person
to take her out to dinner tocelebrate graduation, to
celebrate graduation.
And then, you know, furtheralong the line, we talked about
college and where she was going,because she's such an excellent

(07:53):
student.
And as we were kind of doingsome stuff a different day, we
were filling out some forms andI asked her okay, so how are we
getting there?
And she was like I don't know,I might just Uber.
And I was like that is not anacceptable answer.
And you know, we're going toget a team together to do that

(08:15):
and we're going to move you inand I'm just, I'm really proud
to say that we just moved her ina few weeks ago and she is
doing extremely well and she'sin, thank you, and she's in
college and where I I'm notgonna say I'm trying to not
disclose too much information,but she, I think it's just, you

(08:37):
know, just a symbol of a successstory.
I think in our day-to-day livesor at least the way I grew up in
a definitely super privilegedbubble it was normalized that
everyone goes to high school,everyone then goes off to

(08:58):
college and then everyone getssome sort of job.
And for her to jump over all ofthose barriers that were set up
in front of her to then get tothat amazing milestone and do
that all on her own, essentially, I think is just incredible.

(09:19):
And she didn't have mom and dadnagging her in the back saying
you got to get these forms in,you got to get this done, you
got to get these scores on atest.
I think she's just incrediblyself-motivated and, um, I really
hope that you know so manyother young adults can kind of

(09:42):
hear her story and then motivatethemselves to make those or
jump those hurdles.

Diane Bickett (09:51):
Thank you for sharing that story.
I think it's hard to imagine,when we have as much as we do,
that there are kids out therefacing these type of hurdles and
overcoming them For sure.