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Stories of Hope: Meet Tonichelle
 Tonichelle first came to Covenant House as a minor just a month before her 18th birthday. Tired of being moved around, she has been working with her Case Manager and other Covenant House staff on her plan to achieve her short-term goals in order to obtain her future dreams. She said, “I’m focusing on myself and what I need to do.” After coming to the Crisis program at age 18, she quickly went into our Rights of Passage transitional living program. She attended and completed our Job Readiness Workshop training and was then accepted into our Culinary Arts training program called Ezekiel’s. When Ezekial’s sells food to the staff, she greets staff with her warm smile and helps them choose from the menu items for the day. She is working with the Education Specialist in the Regional Training Center to get into Hunter College next fall. Her ultimate educational goal is to obtain a Masters in Psychology. However, she’s even broken that goal down into smaller goals of getting an associate’s degree and then her bachelor’s degree. This helps her feel that she is achieving small successes towards her final goal. “I want to own my own business where I can help people all in one place. I want to have drop-in services, day care, recreation and counseling all available in one location,” states Tonichelle. Tonichelle has spent most of the past year and a half at Covenant House, and this has been the most stability she’s had since age 12. She started having problems then when her family moved to Brooklyn. She hung around with the wrong group of kids, arguing with her mother and running away. This eventually led her to be placed into foster care which she also ran away from. Suffering from depression and other anxiety disorders, she continued to be shuffled back and forth between her home and different institutions within the juvenile care system. Finally returning home for a summer when she was 17 years old, the family problems began again by summer’s end. Tonichelle eventually called a youth hotline that referred her to a Brooklyn drop-in center, and they referred her to Covenant House. She appreciates finally having a stable place to live for awhile where she can work towards her goals and can speak to staff when she needs help. “I like to write poems and song lyrics to instrumental music I’m listening to,” explaining that this also helps when she’s anxious about something. In addition to taking nature walks in her down time on the paths in Central Park, the path she’s really walking is the one that lets her achieve her goals.
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