I’ve got Carolyn Carr here with me. She’s a past client of Daybreak and I always like to start with the moment of instability. So, what was the moment that brought you to Daybreak?

Oh, that’s a great question. So, I was 18 at the time. Me and my twin sister were in a difficult situation between my mom’s boyfriend and also our mother. Basically, we were feeling safe in our home so my oldest sister who was a client here at Daybreak as well, she recommended us to come straight here. I felt I was safe here because where I was before, there were too many toxic things: domestic violence, abuse, neglect.

At that time, I was between a junior and a senior at high school. That day, I just had enough and said, “I would rather be homeless than be in abusive home and end up being dead somewhere else.”

So, I came to Daybreak. I talked to one of the specialists, told them our side of the story. But I couldn’t talk because I lost my voice that day, so my twin had to be my voice at the moment. All I remember was he took our pictures, took our statements, then brought us to the shelter where we would be staying.

I was in room four and she was in room five. Then we got our stuff from my mom’s house and settled in. I would say the first week or so it was very difficult and challenging because I had panic attacks, high anxiety, posttraumatic stress because being in a homeless shelter took a lot out of me.

I was in school at that time, so it was hard for me to open up to people and tell the truth. I also had anger problems as well so they put me in groups like anger management to make sure I could control my temper and express my emotions.

The first person they assigned me to was Miss Bailey. Oh, she was great, and I loved her, and she helped me through a lot. My twin had Mr. Darrico.  Both Miss Bailey and Mr. Darrico helped me and my sister out a lot because without them or Mr. Travis, we wouldn’t be in a great positive mind space because right now I’m in school. I’m trying to get my degree in social work chemical dependency and I’m in two colleges trying to finish my degree with University of Cincinnati and Wright State.

That’s awesome!

What were the services that you had here that helped you build stability in your life?

When I got here, I didn’t have any type of stability until they introduced me to Mr. Travis. He basically signed me up for Lindy’s & Company. That’s where I met Miss Noelle. She was a head baker.

She taught me about job skills. She taught me how to bake and taught me register, how to communicate with the customers.

Mr. Travis introduced me to AmeriCorps, which is a program that helps with scholarships for colleges. I did three terms, and we did a lot of community service.

The one thing I remember is when I did the march of Martin Luther King. Around that time, I didn’t have school or work, so I volunteered to go to the march because my sisters and I marched from a very young age. It’s been kind of a tradition.

When they said, “Let’s go, let’s go do a march—” I did pictures, put recordings on Facebook. It was a lot of fun and also afterward we went out to hand out sandwiches for the community.

I did that as well because I did a lot of volunteer work back in high school. I tried to do more for my community, so it was a fun moment to do the march of Martin Luther King and hand sandwiches for the community because even though times are hard, I decided to dedicate my time and my body and soul to the community. At the end of the day, we did the right thing.

Amazing! Then if you could give us—you already kind of gave us a little bit of a picture of your life today. You mentioned dedicating your time and body and soul to the community. How are you doing that now and what does your life look like?

Recently, I went to Columbus for Social Work Advocacy Day for future social workers and currently social work students who are graduating this year.

My professor and my other counselor introduced me to this Advocacy Day program because I was more interested in what this event was about. One of the social workers that I know was the person I interviewed for my social work project just this past week. She gave us clarity on how we should use our use our mind body and soul to dedicate our work to help out the community and strive for success and more importantly do you. Be yourself, be professional, be honest with everybody and more importantly don’t let nobody come in the way of your success. Even though there’s challenges along the way, you can work through those challenges.

With social work, do you have an idea of how you want to use that in the community?

I’m pretty much open to do social work with kids, adults, shelters, immigrants, anything/ I’m more open for my clientele so one day my previous clients can pass on recommendations to anyone I can help.

Most importantly, I want to make sure future kids stay on the right path and not go on the wrong path such as gang members, drugs, college or high school dropouts. And most of all to help them not to be homeless because I know homelessness is one of the biggest issues we have today.

Sometimes we don’t know where to turn, where to go, or where we can get help. And sometimes people who are single parents such as mothers or soon to be mothers who are pregnant with their first child, they don’t know what shelter could take both kids or both parents or just one of them.

When I came to Daybreak, I wasn’t pregnant at the time, but I had no job skills, no money, no place to live. I came with only possessions that I had with me. I was a very shy person who didn’t want to speak so I basically didn’t speak for almost the first month or two until my case manager put me in a group for anger management. That’s when I got everything out that I wanted to say.

It was difficult for me to do all that while attending high school and also, I was in JROTC. I had to compete in competitions as well and leave practice and stuff like that. It was very hard for me to juggle all of that while in my situation.

I did graduate from high school, did another internship program with Dayton Public schools called “Project Search” while doing AmeriCorps with Mr. Travis and Mr. Shawn. It was like juggling but it kept me busy, trying to keep me focused off the bad just focused on the positive.

Right, it definitely sounds like you have a lot of things to keep you busy moving forward.

If you could tell people just one thing about Daybreak, what would you want them to know?

I would say Daybreak was a wonderful decision for me to do not because [I fit a certain idea people had of youth who go to Daybreak]. No, the reason why I came to Daybreak was because I needed help. Because me dealing with neglect and abuse over the years, going to school being dirty, bed bugs, and all of that—worn out clothes, difficulties with my mom and everybody else in the system—I would rather be in a homeless shelter than go to the system because for real I didn’t want to be separated from my sister.

Mr. Travis knows I have a twin sister and basically, I looked out for her since we were kids and around that time she had a mental illness. She needs to be looked out for throughout our entire lives even though we still grown and everything, I still look looked out for her.

But Daybreak helped me out a lot. They taught me how to budget, how to do my taxes, and look for jobs. [They] helped me sign up for school, find an apartment, everything. How to budget out my money for bills, like those types of skills I did not have growing up.

Every time I saw either Miss Bailey or Mr. Travis, I asked them questions so that once I knew the information, I could do the rest on my own. Coming to Daybreak was the best decision for me because without Daybreak I will be either dead or worse.

So, coming to Daybreak is like your safe haven. It’s your safe zone even though there are rules and regulations they need you to follow in order for you to be better. I’d rather follow the rules than be out on the street.

Definitely. It’s a great thing for people to know that Daybreak is more than one thing, it’s all the things.

Is there anything else you’d like to add in the time we have left?

I want to say thank you to Mr. Travis because without him I don’t know where I’d be. He taught me how to express myself, be honest, be more courteous, and more importantly, to show love and support to everybody even though I did not have the love support that I needed.

Mr. Travis: That’s very sweet of you.

Carolynn: He gave that to me. He showed me all the opportunities that I never had growing up as a child or [that I] wanted to do. And he showed me, “[Daybreak is here] if there’s anything you want us to help you with or any interest in doing something as a program for a year or two then you want to come back and do this again.”

Any opportunities that Mr. Travis offered for me to do then, yes, I would do it all over again.

Mr. Travis: Well, you have been very fun to work with over the years and you were always so open to trying out new things. I think that’s what made for so many fun experiences and memories was your openness to giving it a go.

Thank you so much for your time today and for being a part of the Daybreak community and all the things you’re doing now to help the community in your work.

Make sure you’re all caught up on our featured 50 Voices 50 Faces interviews as we continue to celebrate 50 years of Daybreak in the Miami Valley.

If you have a story to share about how Daybreak impacted you, email Gina Soldano-Herrle at soldano-herrleg@daybreakdayton.org.