Angela Light still gets butterflies before she speaks to a crowd.
“When I stand before a state legislative committee and advocate about why financial aid should be increased for families with children, I get so nervous that I can’t even breathe,” she says.
But fear doesn’t keep her from sharing her experiences. She tells her story so those who haven’t known poverty and family instability firsthand can “hear what that’s like.”
She’s not looking for sympathy. She wants people to take action to support families who need help.
The downward spiral of a fragile family
Angela grew up with a mother who suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, a severe mental illness that turned both their lives upside down.
“Most of the time I was the parent and she was the kid,” Angela says. “The priority of most of my life was making it to the soup kitchen line in time.”
With deprivation also came feelings of guilt and isolation: “I remember waiting in line, wondering: Why do we have to do this? What did we do wrong?”
Her situation grew more desperate as her mother’s illness spiraled downward. At 14 Angela was still hungry, no longer in school, and wearing clothes she’d long outgrown. The spunky and resilient teenager reached out, tracking down a counselor she remembered meeting at age seven.
It was a life-changing connection for Angela: “I said, ‘I don’t know if you remember me but I remember you and I really need some help!’ And she hooked me up with the woman who [ultimately became] my foster mom.”
Finding safety and security
Leaving a parent—even one who can’t take care of you—is a traumatic experience for any young person. Angela thinks she was luckier than most. She found a permanent home the first time.
“I was blessed,” she says. “Unlike many children, I kind of picked my foster parent. And I was able to pretty much stay with her my entire foster experience. It was a blessing—it changed my life.”
Angela thrived in a safe, stable, and encouraging home. Her foster mom became her hero—and the role model who “showed me how to be a good woman, a good parent, a good human being.”
Making a successful transition to adulthood
There are lots of high points in Angela’s life. She graduated from high school. She’s married and raising “a beautiful and a very joyful” two-year-old son. And she’s in college now on a scholarship for youth formerly in foster care with Casey Family Programs.
She also works as volunteer coordinator at the Fremont Public Association in Seattle, a housing and human services agency with an extensive food program. Her career goal: to become a legal advocate for low-income people.
Angela tells her story to make a difference. “If by some miracle a legislative or political change happens and a child’s life somewhere has been changed,” she says, “that’s powerful. And that’s why I do it.”