November 24, 2015
Her grandmother had heard about Mercy Home from a friend. “At first, I was not really sure about it,” Mayra remembers. But it didn’t take long for her to change her mind. She found herself liking the environment and the coworkers, and she realized just how different Mercy Home was from the place she’d been living before.
Mayra’s mother was in jail, and so was her sister. Mayra and her other sisters were living with their grandmother, who doctors thought was ill. “I was having family problems,” Mayra says. She and her sisters were always fighting, and their mom wasn’t around to take care of them. “It was hard,” Mayra says, “[but] I wasn’t showing it. I used to smile even when I was feeling bad.”
At Mercy Home, Mayra found she could open up about her family and her past for the first time. “There’s someone you can talk to, like your therapist,” she says; “It feels better because when I was keeping my feelings inside, it was not a good feeling.” Building relationships with Mercy Home’s coworkers, and knowing she is supported and cared for, has helped Mayra’s attitude about herself. “After a while,” she says, “I started to get confidence.”
Mayra’s newfound confidence has also made a difference at school. When Mayra first moved in, she was struggling with her weekly spelling tests. Sometimes, her scores were near 40%. Mayra knew she wanted to do better. Her Mercy Home tutor taught her a new spelling technique to try, and Mayra got to practicing. She was able to raise her score to an 85%, her highest score ever. And recently, Mayra brought home a 100%.
At Mercy Home, Mayra particularly enjoys the events and activities. Of being an altar server in Mercy Home’s chapel, she says; “I like it. It’s different than sitting and hearing the Mass because you interact with it.” But to Mayra, it is the safety and support that make Mercy Home so special. “The structure is the thing that helps,” she says; “There’s structure, but we have fun!”
It is because of the generosity of friends like you that our kids, like Mayra, are able to make strides in school, open up about their struggles, and gain confidence in themselves. When Mayra thinks about her future, she knows she wants “to go to college,” she says. And after getting that perfect 100%, she knows she can do it!
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