Can I title this Sweet Caroline?
About a year ago, I was pacing in my kitchen, sick to my stomach with fear.
The new administration had just been inaugurated. The news cycle was overwhelming and the urgency was heightened. I was working several jobs; as a part time consultant, doing freelance work, a dog nanny, and as a substitute teacher. My life had just been ripped apart emotionally, academically and financially by my mother’s tragic death a year before. My savings were thin, my responsibilities were not, and the future — my children’s future — felt suddenly fragile in a way that was difficult to sit with.
“I need a full-time job yesterday,” I told her. “I’ve dug myself into a hole and I don’t know what to do.”
She didn’t panic with me. (She never does, that’s why I call her.)
“First of all, breathe,” Caroline (my aptly named, “Hope Coach”) said. “You didn’t dig a hole. You have a foundation. You’re on track. How can I help?”
As simple as it was; that conversation changed everything.
A hole implies failure, and a foundation implies structure, intention. Something already built; something I built.
She immediately sent me a list of organizations that were hiring. Nonprofits. Events. Advocacy groups. Work that she knew would matter to me, not just pay. Some of the options felt too close to home, too emotionally charged for that moment in my life. Others were interesting but not quite right. I had some job offers but there was one that felt different. Aligned.
Caroline recognized the trajectory I was already on and removed the fog so I could see it myself.
I was a scholar with Generation Hope for nearly a decade, and now I’m an alumna. Generation Hope is a scholarship and advocacy program for young parents pursuing higher education — people who are often navigating school, work, childcare, housing instability, and stigma all at once. The program provided something rare in my life: continuity. A supporter who stayed. Practical support when emergencies happened.
That support didn’t erase every obstacle, but it made forward motion possible when stopping would have been easier.
I speak about Generation Hope with deep gratitude, because their impact on my life is undeniable.
Looking back now, I realized Caroline wasn’t just sending job leads. She was mapping my lived experience onto opportunities that would honor it. She saw the connective tissue between my past support systems, my values, and the kind of work that would allow me to show up fully.
It was one persons thoughtful attention to who someone actually is and what conditions will allow them to thrive.
It was someone saying, with complete calm in the middle of your panic:
You are not behind. You are building. You can do this.
Thank you, Caroline.
