Emma is a fiercely determined young woman. With Live & Learn’s support, she has found success at YearUp AZ, the Maricopa Community Colleges, and Bank of America. Her hard work has brought her from a life of difficulty to a place of stability, self-sufficiency, and hope.
Emma and her siblings grew up in Phoenix, raised by a single mother. “Growing up, things were hard,” Emma reflects. In high school, she devoted herself to her schoolwork with great drive and determination. She studied and worked hard, and she succeeded.
After graduation, Emma went to work, with her same drive and determination. She remembers feeling “like I could really make a new life for myself”. Yet, it would not be as straightforward as she had thought.
For five years, Emma worked hard but still only earned $12/hour with no benefits. Like so many, she struggled to get ahead. Then, she became pregnant.
“When I was pregnant, that was when I really knew I needed something different. I needed to do something with my life, but I didn’t know what.”
In 2020, Emma was accepted into Year Up AZ’s intense career training program with school and internship components. “I still didn’t really have an end goal, I was just working hard and trusting it would make sense at some point.” It was not easy to balance motherhood, school, and an internship, and she still felt unsure of where she was heading in life. That’s when Year Up referred Emma to Live & Learn.
“Live & Learn helped me tremendously! They made everything possible,” Emma explains. While Emma continued progressing through the Year Up program, her Live & Learn Client Coordinator helped her set short term goals, offered support for Emma in her personal life, and helped her navigate the challenges of balancing motherhood with work and school. Live & Learn helped Emma access other resources she needed, connected her with a laptop so she could continue her education, and provided some financial support so that Emma could accept the opportunity of an unpaid internship. That internship transitioned into a good-paying job at Bank of America with opportunities for further career advancement.
