Her Dream is to be a Lawyer

Her Dream is to be a Lawyer

By Diana Moskovitz The Miami Herald

 Jennie Jean, 18, is on her own. Because of a technicality, she doesn’t qualify for state assistance. Help and a job are needed as she prepares to enter college.

 In a few weeks, Jennie Jean starts college. She’s 18, finishing high school and should be doing typical American teenager things. Thinking about prom. Dreaming about summer adventures.

Instead, she’s looking for work, so she can keep sending money back to her mother in Haiti.

She’s double-checking bus routes, so she can get to her college classes without a car.

She talks about saving up to buy a television — one day.

Jennie is on her own. And because she didn’t spend her final six months before turning 18 in foster care, she doesn’t qualify for assistance from the state for teens who “age out.”

She started this year in a homeless shelter, found her way into foster care and will finish it in her own apartment, one subsidized through Broward Housing Solutions and SOS Children’s Village, a foster care neighborhood in Broward County. She moved in this month, rolling in her suitcase a few hours after finishing another day of classes at Monarch High School in Coconut Creek.

She plans to start classes at Broward College in January.

Her small, one-bedroom apartment has just the basics: a couch, a kitchen table with chairs, two dressers, a bed and one tall, lonely lamp for the living room. Most of it came with the help of her SOS case manager. There’s also a TV table, without a TV. She’ll work on getting that, eventually.

But she loves the place, flashing a big smile when she talks about it. Only a few days after moving in, she already had cleaned every corner, even wrapping the stove burners in tin foil to keep them tidy.

She won’t complain. The extrovert who said she’s known for her debates in American government class turned bashful when a reporter asks her for details about all the furnishings, supplies and details of what her new home still needs.

Jennie said she really only needs one thing. A job so she can keep sending money back to her mom in Haiti. On a Sunday afternoon, the Western Union receipt from her latest wire transfer sits on the kitchen counter.

“To me, as long as I eat and I sleep, I’m OK,” she said. “I love being busy.”

Jennie was born in Cap-Haitien, the youngest of three sisters. When Jennie was in her teens, her mother sent the three to Miami for a better life, she said. They stayed with an uncle, crowded into a house that already included his own family. Jennie taught herself English by watching as much TV as possible, she recalled, with a dictionary by her side so she could look up words.

As soon as she was old enough, she got two jobs. Jennie worked as a cashier at KFC and Target while going to classes at Hollywood Hills High and sent the money back to her mom, she said.

“I gotta take care of my mom,” she would tell herself.

But her relationship with her uncle soured. She couldn’t stay there anymore, Jennie said. Both her sisters were trying to make it on their own.

She landed at the Covenant House, a Fort Lauderdale shelter for runaway and homeless teens. She stayed there for seven months, until she couldn’t stay anymore. By the time she left, Jennie said she also had lost her two jobs. School and counseling at the Covenant House meant too many absences from work.

For two weeks, she slept in public parks or at the beach. When someone with the Department of Children & Families found her, Jennie said she didn’t try to hide. She was too tired and scared.

DCF placed her with SOS Children’s Village in Coconut Creek. She had her own room for the first time in years. She got reenrolled in high school at Monarch. She could pull food from a refrigerator at any time and without someone yelling at her.

She felt like a princess.

She starts college classes three days after graduation. She wants to be a lawyer, the best lawyer, she said, with her own law firm.

Jennie also keeps looking for work. Sitting at home on a Sunday, talking to a reporter, doesn’t feel right. She should be doing something. She loves keeping busy.

She recalls how one of her sisters asked her if they could one day have dinner together without Jennie looking through job ads at the same time.

“I love being independent,” she said, soon followed by, “I love helping my mom.”

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2011/12/27/2563572/her-dream-is-to-be-a-lawyer.html#storylink=cpy