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The success stories we witness every day
are both an encouragement and inspiration to all of us at St. Vincent’s.

Profile of Success  
Have you ever lost your keys, and in a panic searched high and low, looking everywhere for them, wishing that you could remember where you left them? That’s the panic I felt when I first arrived at St. Vincent’s with my three month old daughter, Chloe. My name is Julie.

I came to St. Vincent’s desperate for help. I was lost. I had no idea how to take care of myself—much less a baby. At the time I had less than a year clean from drugs and alcohol. I was convinced that my getting pregnant saved my life and that I was done with using drugs, but after that I had no idea what to do next. I didn’t know if I should get a job or go back to school; I even thought about giving my baby away and wondered if it was too late because it all seemed so impossible and overwhelming.

First thing I was given was a door key and a room key. That doesn’t sound like a lot but to me it was everything. At one of my lowest points during my drug addiction I was homeless and lived in a Volvo on the corner of Haley and Garden Streets. Keys meant security, a foundation, a place to call my home and a place to rest at the end of the day.

Tracy, my case manger, told me to sit down and enjoy my baby. She said that there was time to figure everything out but Chloe wouldn’t stay a baby forever. When she was nine months old, I went back to school. What better gift could I give us than an education? I enrolled in SBCC and Chloe enrolled in Casa Alegria. There is no other preschool that comes close to what Casa Alegria provides Chloe and me.

God has worked miracles in my life. Currently I am in my last semester at CC and will be continuing on to UCSB in the winter on a grant, which will pay my tuition so I can finish my degree in sociology. I plan on getting a master’s in counseling and working with high risk teenagers in the high school. I have been on the President’s honor roll, I was nominated CARE student of the year last year and currently I work as a Peer Advisor helping other students navigate through school. Come December I will have four years clean and sober.

St. Vincent’s started with just giving me a key to a door, now I see that they gave me keys to being a wonderful mother, student, family member and friend. They essentially provided me with the keys to a bright future for Chloe and me and in a few weeks they will send me on my way across the street to my brand new apartment at St. Vincent’s Gardens. Chloe and I have made friends that we will have for the rest of our lives here. I don’t know where I would be without St. Vincent’s in my life these past three years but I do know that it is because of the generosity of many individuals that they will be able to provide keys to other women and their children, who are as lost today, wanting and needing as much help as I was three years ago.

Chloe and Julie receive the keys to their new home with Case Manager Tracy Battle.