Hi, my name is Ashley Middlebrooks.
I have been a part of Home Away From Homelessness since I was seven years old. When I first started to get involved with the program I attended The Beach House. The Beach House program had just started and I went regularly. After this, I moved in to the School House program. I stayed with the School House program until I graduated from Middle School. When I graduated, I decided that I did not want to leave the program because I felt I would get involved in activities I didn’t belong in.
I did not know what to do about staying, and this is when two of my friends and I decided to write a grant to open up a new program for the high school students. Juju, Miggie, and I got together with Nessa and came up with a game plan. We got together, came up with some ideas to start a program for the youth who graduated from Middle School and started searching for grants. We found a grant for 10,000 dollars, applied and we got it! After we got the grant we started to get more youth involved with the program who had graduated from the School House, and now the program has been going on for five years.
