Blogging Away Debt Our Journeys to a Debt-Free Life

by Hope

Please help me congratulate this AMAZING son of mine! He has officially passed his Basic EMS test and can now work in his chosen field. Woot, woot!

He is continuing his schooling this summer and will test for his Advanced EMS this fall either here or in California. As planned, he will be departing at the end of July to serve with Americorps FEMA for a year.

I am so, so proud of him. For those of you new to following me, I will give you a brief history of Sea Cadet…

Sea Cadet’s Story

Sea Cadet grew up in a transient home, essentially homeless until he was 12 years old and both of his parents were incarcerated. He along with his 4 siblings were placed in foster care, Sea Cadet and his identical twin brother (History Buff) were placed with me. They were in 7th grade and attending public schools. They had attended at least 6 different schools at that point, and were performing at a 3rd/4th grade level academically.

Sea Cadet had a speech impediment, couldn’t see (he needed glasses) and had an IEP through the special ed department that provided him additional support for a variety of other things. Their goal for him was to ride the public buses alone someday. I was floored when I first heard this after having him in my home for about a month at that time.

The twins had been bullied their whole lives and just passed on through the system. I received special permission to pull Sea Cadet out of public school in order to work with him as a homeschooled student. It was intense and not always pleasant for either of us. But we had an amazing homeschool community who just surrounded him and accepted him and nurtured him and pushed him.

He graduated from high school a year late and dove into this EMS program…and here we are. He’s gotten his drivers license, holds down a job and the boy they described in those initial IEP papers just doesn’t exist anymore.

What’s Next for Sea Cadet

He is a true testimony of what I’ve always believed, sometimes all it takes is for someone to tell you that you can do something.

Sea Cadet has a heart for serving…he is a volunteer firefighter in our local community, participates in the local Police Explorers program and will soon begin work as an EMT before serving a year with Americorp. I don’t know exactly what his future holds, but I can’t see anything but a fantastic adventure ahead and he is ready for it!

Hope

Hope is a creative, solutions-focused business manager helping clients grow their business and work more efficiently by leveraging expertise in project management, digital marketing, & tech solutions. She’s recently become an empty nester as her 5 foster/adoptive kids have spread their wings. She lives with her 3 dogs in a small town in NE Georgia and prefers the mountains to the beaches any day. She struggles with the travel bug and is doing her best to help each of her kids as their finish schooling and become independent (but it’s hard!) She has run her own consulting company for almost twenty years! Hope began sharing her journey with the BAD community in the Spring of 2015 and feels like she has finally in a place to really focus on making wise financial decisions.