YouthBuild Member Profile
A Day in the Life of Kay Murray
Welcome to our YouthBuild Member profiles, in which our YouthBuild members capture a day in their lives.
I wake up every morning feeling like I don’t want to get up, and I want to go right back to sleep. But knowing that I have somewhere to be that holds my future, I get up and going. Sometimes I lay there for another half an hour, and have to rush to get ready and be at program on time. Every morning I have to take the city bus to school. Sometimes I miss it and have to wait for the next one or walk to school. It’s not too far from my home so the walk is not bad. In the morning we sign in so that we don’t get docked and keep track of our attendance and late arrivals as if we were working an actual job.
When I arrive, I am greeted by the staff and my peers. Everyone says good morning and asks about my night. I used to not want to talk to anyone in the morning, but all that positive energy lightens my mood. At 8:30 we gather for Morning Meeting, this is a time where we are reminded what motivates us to be here, a personal reminder that we have a purpose. Sometimes we have an activity. As a group we say the YouthBuild pledge, which reminds us of the bigger picture as to why we come to program every day.
Then we break and either head to the construction site for on the job training, or the classroom to prepare for our TASC. Today, I am in the classroom. I am preparing to take the TASC in February. Our teacher, Jim, plays the comeback song so we know when class is starting. We start our morning by setting a daily goal and then posting that on the board. Often mine is to “stay off my phone” or “have a positive attitude.” Then we do a daily edit exercise. Today I went to the board and demonstrated the correction for my peers. We spent most of the rest of the day working on math. Today we are working on Trigonometry. Definitely a confusing topic, but Mr. Jim has us practice and then teach each other which pushes us to demonstrate what we know, and to use the math language, which helps me learn it better. Today I was the teacher, with another one of my classmates, Kharon, assisting me.
For lunch we ate tacos and green beans and pears. Yogurt was desert. Even though it didn’t really go together, it was a decent lunch. Sometimes, I don’t eat breakfast because I am rushing, or we don’t have food so it helps to have food at YouthBuild.
After lunch we then moved onto Social Studies, and we started with a current event happening today so we could relate to it, and then moved onto studying the Holocaust. It makes me realize that some people had it much worse than my life.
Then we end the day with a close-out group. These is when we acknowledge people for helping us or give affirmations and appreciations. We also talk about how our day went and what is in store for us the next day.
Then I go home. I stop at the corner store on my way home and grab a beef patty, a Brisk Tea and some Doritos for dinner. I got home and as soon as I walked in the door my sister asked me for money because she wanted bus money to go see her boyfriend. My mom and my mom’s boyfriend approached me for more rent money. I already paid them, but because they know I get a stipend from YouthBuild, they asked me for even more.
I left the house to participate in a service project with the Boys and Girls Club around 5:30pm. Today we are supporting a basketball game, I got back home around 10pm. As soon as I walked through the door, I was greeted by my mom’s boyfriend asking me where I was. I tried to tell them I was at a Service project, but they didn’t believe me. They got angry and said I was lying, even though I was with a program specialist and other students from my program. This started an argument which got physical between my mom and her boyfriend. I broke that up and went to bed.
I am working on getting my own apartment with my sister. We went yesterday to look at one option but when we visited the location, the floors caved in. I guess we have to keep looking.
