What I know about my mother is that she was born in Poland and had lived there for most of her young life before coming to America with her family. She lived in Ozone Park and I believe had worked as a Dental Assistant and had attended Queens College.

My father had been born in Brooklyn and had family members that come from Italy. For most of his life, he has worked as a chef at various places across New York. I was born in Elmhurst in 1994 and I had lived the majority of my young life across Kew Gardens and Woodhaven. When I was 6, we moved to Richmond Hill and after a few years living here, problems began to begin.

I began the first grade just before I turned 7. I went to a school in Richmond Hill for a few weeks, was switched to another school, and then was sent back to the first school. My parents thought there was something wrong, so I was homeschooled for a few years.

When I was 9, we ran into a few home problems, so we ended up having to move into a family shelter in Elmhurst, and we ended up living in a few different locations for about 4 years.

A few years before I turned 11, my father passed away, so it was just my mother and I until I turned 14, which was when I was placed in Foster Care, and I have been there ever since. I loved being with my family, but I can not deny that I have had many great opportunities since I moved. For instance, until I turned 14, I have only been outside of Queens and Manhattan just once that I remember. Since then, I have been to 5 other states and I have been out of the country three times.

There were many other great things such as schools and jobs. The truth is, if I had still been with my parents, I probably would not have made it past a couple years of high school. Everybody from within the family, as well as outside help have helped me keep everything on track.

I have also learned a lot from the other children who have lived there, who have really been from all over the place. Right now, the only other kid who lives with me is Mexican and he always teaches me all sorts of different things and tells me various stories of when he was young before he came to America. While I have been with this family, there have been maybe a dozen other children who have been from many different countries and I learned a lot from each of them.

For high school, I had went to a school in Flushing that had a specialized Agriculture program and I had spent my whole high school career there and had been able to graduate with both an endorsement for Agriculture, and my Advance Regents Diploma. Help from the family, as well as from this school, helped me do all sorts of things that I never would have thought of doing with a school, such as working and going to amazing conventions.

With the Agriculture program, I had gone to multiple state wide conventions and had been able to compete in various competitions. With the program, I had received medals for mechanics, Landscaping, and more. I have done many other great things with this school that I was proud of. I was on the school newspaper, I was on multiple clubs and teams, and I was in a College Now class. The college now class was for web design, and in addition to winning Student of the Month for college now, I received the College Now award at graduation from QueensBoruogh Community College and I was the only student to win the award that year, and the  first to win it from that school in a few years.

The Agriculture program had also really helped me with work, my first job was given to me from the program and I was working at Forest park. Because of the program, I have also worked at a wildlife rehabilitation center, which I continue to do.

My life had been really strange, with all sorts of various ups and downs, but I don’t expect much to change, I expect more positive and negative things to happen to me, and I gladly accept them.

Also...

Recently, some of you may have known that I have been going through some rough spots at school, but I do plan on getting everything back on track, and once I graduate with a degree in Sport management, I soon hope to get a job with the Mets, though I do know that I may have to work elsewhere as well, which I am fine with.

I do know that I have to do an internship at some point in the future, and once I finish the internship, I hope that I do well enough that the company would be willing to hire me as a full time staff member once I graduate. For this internship, I am looking into working for SNY which is the New York regional Sports channel.