CEO StoryTelling Project

Hi. My name’s Ellen. I’ve been a volunteer with CEO for the last four years and I’m going to read a story that I wrote about my time with CEO.

 

“What are your goals for the program? What do you want to get from your time at CEO?”

 

This is the question CEO’s program director asked one bright Monday morning. The conversation that followed was one that’s stuck with me and made me truly see and understand the mission of CEO.

 

“What are your goals for the program?” he asked, full with excitement to get to know their new client on her first day. He was eager to aid her path to success.

“I feel really stagnant in my job,” she said with heavy undertones, feelings of complacency and immobility. “There is just no more room for growth there.”

“Where do you work?”

“In corrections.”

His face lit up and with extreme enthusiasm. “Oh! You’re one of us!”

It was not embarrassment or shame but instead a deep understanding that there were limitations that were her own, obstacles he could not understand. Without hesitation, anger, or bitterness she responded, “Well, no. Not really. I work in the kitchen.”

 

Over 20 years ago Evalia came to America from Guadalajara with her daughter to seek new opportunities for growth. She found them, moving to and from different jobs gaining new skills and traits: the language of banking, broking, mortgaging, the lingo of cooking and cleaning and packing and storing. But now, she’s bored. She’s stuck. She’s getting older, too—back pain, neck pain. Above all, Evalia has a desire to learn more. She’s here to grow in her career, to further her understanding, and to better herself.

 

We work together every Monday, her smiling face always greeting me as I walk through the door. We jump straight into conversation, catching up on the week’s activities, new frustrations, and always find something to laugh about. But that first conversation always plays in my head like a bad song that I work each day to rewrite.

 

“Oh! You’re one of us!”

“Well, no. Not really. I work in the kitchen.”

 

We sit and share almonds and craisins. We swap stories and share laughter and build friendships. One morning, she brought me a fairly large English / Spanish dictionary so that we could “study together” as she called it. I feel like old friends sitting together at a coffee shop. We’re focused on our own studies only stopping for a brief moment to grab the next handful of snacks or laugh about some fluttering thought that came into our heads.

 

“Oh! You’re one of us!”

“Well, no. Not really. I work in the kitchen.”

 

We work. While her verbal English is impeccable, it’s been years since she has taken an English course. Strange words, trick questions, capitalization and commas: these are the bumps in her uneven ground.

 

“Oh! You’re one of us!”

“Well, no. Not really. I work in the kitchen.”

 

But she is. She becomes a part of CEO every day, and CEO a part of her. And her a part of me. And me a part of her.

 

Evalia, and students alike, are not just statistics, records, stereotypes, and documented success. It is not one of us and one of them; it is a collective working for tangible and intangible good. Evalia, and students alike, are not just case numbers, tutor clients, and test scores that qualify CEO for its funding. They are people, people with dreams and desires and goals, people with life outside of the walls of CEO—people who belong.

 

“Oh! You’re one of us!”

“Well, no. Not really. I work in the kitchen.”

 

In deeds, CEO responds to her self-separation every day by saying, “it doesn’t matter. You’re one of us regardless.”