“Day to day I put myself in my camper’s shoes. What if this camper is going through something and nobody knows? I make it my goal each day to find out. And as much as I help them, they help me. I can be a kid with them, they distract me, and I don’t have to hide anything.”
This Christmas season at UrbanPromise, we are reflecting on and celebrating the promises you have helped us keep in our communities.
Over the last seven years, UrbanPromise has made promises to more than 400 students in three Charlotte neighborhoods. In short, we’ve promised to fulfill our vision — Reach a Child, Raise a Leader, Restore Community.
When we consider the hundreds of students we’ve been privileged to get to know over the years, so many inspiring stories come to mind. But few students embody the full spectrum of our vision and promise like Linda, who was one of our very first campers back in 2013 and who is now a senior StreetLeader Captain at our South Boulevard Site.
We hope Linda’s story inspires you by showing what promises can make possible when they are kept — and replicated! — over time.
REACH A CHILD.
“When I first started at UrbanPromise, I was a rising 5th grader.” Linda recalls. “What I remember most about that time was that my family was going through a lot and UP was a safe place for me.”
Linda helped launch UP back in 2013 when there were just a handful of StreetLeaders and campers on board. She was a part of the group who paved the way for hundreds of students to come!
“As a 5th grader, you think you’re big, you’re going to middle school! But at UP, it was so cool to see teenagers. From when you first walk in the door, they are just so hyped about everything!”
Linda remembers two StreetLeaders in particular who defined her time as a camper.
Linda (top left) as a camper at UP’s first Summer Camp in 2013. Ginger, the StreetLeader she connected with, is in the middle!
“One of the StreetLeaders I always talk about is Ginger. She helped me through a lot. I was going through some self-worth and self-beauty issues at the time, and she just really listened and understood and helped me through all of that. Then, when I was in 7th grade, UP started the Middle School Program. Our family was going through some things, and Davion was in there supporting me.”
Feeling seen and cared for by her older peers impacted Linda deeply. We often say that StreetLeaders are “the heart of UP” because their lived example offers our younger students a tangible role model to emulate and a blueprint for what servant leadership looks like. It’s that experience that often encourages campers towards the decision that Linda ultimately made:
“Yes! I definitely wanted to become a StreetLeader myself!”
As soon as she entered high school, Linda accepted the role. But it wasn’t the only additional responsibility she found herself taking on…
RAISE A LEADER.
“When I was a freshman, my dad had recently been deported and my brother left home, so now it was just me and my mom. I had to take on so many roles — clean the house, make food, go to school, carry bills on my own. Later, my infant nephew came in and I kind of became a mom to him, too.”
Under the weight of so much responsibility and heartache, Linda’s world started to feel heavy and dark. Even as she was stepping into leadership at UP, she recognized that she still needed support for herself, as well.
“CiCi (UP’s South Boulevard StreetLeader Director) was one of the first people I opened up to. She kept pushing me into vulnerability, kept pushing me to open up to her and to other StreetLeaders. But I had so many walls built up from my past,” Linda recalls.
Mutual vulnerability is one of the core values of the StreetLeader community at UP. Vulnerability can be hard for many teenagers, but when students are courageous enough to trust the process, incredible transformation can unfold.
“I started opening up more. Then I started counseling with Titus (one of the counselors at C4, UP’s professional counseling partnership). Counseling has helped me so much emotionally and spiritually. It got to the point where I was actually excited to talk to him! Then I got a mentor (through UP’s adult mentoring program), Maggie. With all of this support, I was able to pick myself back up. I realized that, you know, if staff and StreetLeaders are doing all of this for me, I feel like the least I can do is this same thing for the kids.”
As she continued her journey of healing and began to see the incredible value in her story, Linda remembered what StreetLeaders like Ginger and Davion had meant to her.
“Day to day I put myself in my camper’s shoes. What if this camper is going through something and nobody knows? I make it my goal each day to find out. And as much as I help them, they help me. I can be a kid with them, they distract me, and I don’t have to hide anything.”
Linda mentions one camper in particular, Natalia, an 8th grader who she has spent years building a supportive relationship with, and who will become a StreetLeader herself next year when she enters high school.
“She’s gone through a lot. I constantly work with her, talk to her, check up on her. I have a relationship with her mom and her siblings. It feels like I have done something. It gives me peace, knowing I’ve really done something.”
RESTORE COMMUNITY.
Linda’s journey as a StreetLeader will come to an end in May when she graduates from high school and takes her next steps.
“I’ll be the first person in my family to graduate from high school. In my community, a lot of teenagers don’t make it that far. Being one of the few means I am representing them, too -- minorities, women, immigrants. It makes me proud of myself. I hope younger campers will say, ‘If Linda did it, then I can do it, too!’”
So far, Linda has received two college acceptances! As she considers what the future might hold, she points to two recent experiences that have helped her recognize her power and influence as a leader.
One of those experiences was winning the StreetLeader division of UP’s annual Strength to Love Speech Contest back in February of this year.
“The speech contest made me use my voice, and, as I did, I realized… OK, I am actually being heard. Even if I hadn’t won, it still would have been something major for me. I never would have imagined myself speaking in front of so many people! Now I feel like I can do anything.”
The other experience Linda recalls was speaking as a student expert on an education panel at the city-wide Charlotte Justice Conference in October. She shared about her experiences in school and her leadership at UP with hundreds of people who attended in-person and virtually.
“Most of my life I feel like I’ve been shut down, but here my voice was being heard again. When I was up there, it wasn’t just me I brought on stage. I represented a lot of my campers. I know their stories, and I know how often society puts a label on them, but that’s not who they are. I just wanted to make sure they were heard, too.”
Experiences like these motivate Linda to continue to use her voice on behalf of her community, both here in Charlotte and in other parts of the world.
“One of my dreams is to one day create an UrbanPromise back in my family’s home community of Tampico, Mexico. UrbanPromise is like heaven. It’s a place where you can just come in, be yourself, and get distracted from any problems you have. It’s been my family, my home, my everything.”
We are incredibly proud of Linda’s journey, and we hope you are as inspired by her faith, her influence, and her dreams as we are. THANK YOU for being an important part of Linda’s journey by investing in UrbanPromise!