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Success Stories
In the last three years, Jaime Wright has gone from homeless to having a home; from addicted to sober; and from jobless to employed full time.
After graduating from high school and starting college, Jaime’s life quickly became filled with dealing drugs, substance abuse, homelessness and jail. After a while, his lifestyle became too much to handle. “I used to just take from people,” Jaime says. “I was tired. I was fed up. I was worn out. I couldn’t ask for any more help.”
Jaime came to Twin Cities RISE! through the Awali program, where he found strong male role models for the first time in his life. After transferring into the Core Program, Jaime completed an internship at TCR!.
But it wasn’t easy—he nearly quit the program twice. Jaime’s coaches, instructors and the constant reminder of Personal Empowerment were what kept him moving forward. “I’m a go getter. So that was always a plus for me even though I had my issues. If you gave me an inch, I’d take a foot,” Jaime says. “But if it wasn’t for empowerment, I wouldn’t have lasted.”
In 2010, he was hired full time at Dunwoody Academy, a local charter high school, now called Metro Tech Career Academy. In his job as a Behavioral Specialist, Jaime uses his own experiences on a daily basis to encourage and motivate his students—many of whom come from difficult backgrounds as well. He demonstrates what he learned from Personal Empowerment, and hopes to one day teach those skills to elementary school kids as a career. “I love kids. I love passing on positive information and turning negatives into positives,” Jaime says.
The other passion in Jamie’s life is wrestling. Throughout the toughest times in his life, wrestling kept him going, and he now spends his evenings and weekends coaching local youth—including his daughter, who lives with him. Jaime says, “I wake up and say—and I do believe—that I’m lovable, important and valuable. I think empowerment is going to be my future.”
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