RACHEL

My name is Rachel and I grew up in Stockton, California. For the first 5 years of my life, I felt as though I lived in a relatively safe home, but never realized otherwise until I grew up. My mother was addicted to methamphetamine and this addiction pushed her family to the back seat, while her need to get a "fix" became her partner in crime. We lost our home I grew up in because she used the house payment money to buy her drug. My father shielded me from this for which I am grateful.

When I was 7 years old, I was definitely the poor kid in class. I never wore clean clothes, hardly bathed and had very few friends. The friends I did have, I held very close to me because they were a better family than the one I had. When I reached middle school, I became more responsible; I knew when to bathe, learned to wash my own clothes and found that disguising my horrible life wasn't too hard.

Then I started high school at Stagg High, I was extremely excited. I made a lot of friends, started dating and got in with the wrong crowd. I found it easier to ditch school and go smoke weed on the river rather than deal with my teachers. I started ditching school everyday which led me to running away from home to do drugs and live the "rock star life". I just couldn't deal with my home life anymore--no running water, no electricity and no love. But I found life on the streets was not easy.

We moved to Sacramento a quarter of the way into the school year and all this ended. I met Frank and Monica at MVP, who changed and probably saved my life. I currently attend Christian Brothers High School as a Sophomore and am maintaining a B average and best of all I have been clean for the last 9 months. Had I not found MVP, I would be on some type of drug and maybe pregnant, or worse. I had considered suicide many times, however, those thoughts are now gone.

Thank you for supporting me and the rest of the kids at MVP.

Rachel