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If I Can Do it, You Can, Too!

AMBER KENNEDY had been told that going to college was a MUST! However, she took a little different path and was pregnant at 20 years old, much to the dismay of her family. At the time, she was on food stamps and by age 22, she became a single mother. But Amber wanted more in life than her son’s father including a better home and job. “I didn’t want to live on welfare my whole life,” she explains.

She decided to apply for housing assistance through BVCOG and attend school. She quit her job at the gas station, signed up for five classes and moved in with a friend while she waited to be called for housing assistance. BVCOG provided her with a Voucher and she got her own place in College Station. At her 2^nd annual recertification meeting, Amber heard about the BVCOG Family Self-Sufficiency Program and decided to apply. “It turns out that I could get paid to do something I was already working on – school!” One of her first goals to become self-sufficient was to just save electricity in her house. “It was as simple as changing a few light bulbs to the energy efficient ones,” she explains.

However, a year later she fell very sick. Things got so bad that she couldn’t work or go to school. Four years into the FSS Program she wasn’t making any progress to becoming independent and self-sufficient. The FSS team at BVCOG granted her a two-year extension on the Program. After she gradually started feeling a better, she found a job at the Association of REALTORS in Bryan. She refocused on getting back into school and completing the FSS Program. Amber finished her Associate’s Degree in Information Management in May of 2010. She also received a Certificate as an Information Management Specialist.