Speaker: Shanetta
Lyndsay: It was such a blessing to win the Live Your Dream Award in 2021. I've been able to use it as a tool to encourage the women that I work with and the women that are around me as something to strive for as well. It's something that I'm super proud of that I was able to accomplish after all of the years of the hard times that I put myself through. So I'm very, very proud of myself to be able to say that it is something that I did accomplish. That I won the Live Your Dream Award.
Lyndsay: Winning the Live Your Dream Award was very helpful when I won the award. I won it three years ago. So I was able to use the money that I won to help with childcare costs. And some of the things I was going through during that time, but long term, I have had women that are in my life that wouldn't be in my life, other words if I didn't win the award but also it's something that I'm able to share with my daughter as a mark of a sign of hope in her life. Like, hey, if I can do this, you can do this too.
Shanetta: I'm gonna go with the financial impact of it first. I was working part time because I wanted to really focus in on school. So the financial impact was huge for me because it allowed me to have that time to focus on my academic career, maybe even spend some time, you know, a little bit more time with my kids as opposed to having to work and not being here. That was very bothersome to me to not be able to be here for my kids or even show up for myself. So with having the financial impact from Soroptimist was huge. And I remember one year they even did a Christmas gift to all of the recipients and I was an awardee of that. So not only during the year was I, helped, or a financial burden was removed, they also helped my kids to have a wonderful Christmas, which was very hard for me. And so that was just a very much a blessing. When I look at the impact it had on me mentally. That was also great. And this specifically came from my mentor that took the time to listen to me. Even when I was venting about things and she just kept reminding me to give myself grace. Often time we tell other people to, you know, if you get knocked down, you know, just stand back up, it'll be ok. But it was really hard to say that to myself. And so to have someone that I was starting a relationship with and she getting to know who I am and my kids to remind me of that grace and mercy was huge. So it, it definitely had a huge impact on my mental health because of sometimes I just felt like I couldn't do it It was too much And I didn't see the way out and to be able to have someone to bounce those ideas off of or to even listen. And sometimes she would ask me, do you want me to respond? And I thought that was helpful because it wasn't unwarranted advice. It was more of how would you like me to assist you with this? And she did and so mentally, financially and then lastly, confidence and it impacted my confidence. going back to what I previously stated of being seen and, and seeing and having someone who wants me to reach my academic potential was huge So to then have that confidence coming back to me. And to have that accountability of someone watching me was major. So even the times where I wanted to quit, I just kind of took maybe a couple of hours off as opposed to just being done completely with school. So it had a huge impact holistically on me.
