How Balancing Self-Care and Sacrifice Enabled One Mom to Achieve Her Dreams

By: Tamara Braunstein

If you’d asked Araceli in high school about what she wanted to do with her life, she might have shrugged. She definitely wouldn’t have named any job requiring a four-year degree — she never thought she’d make it to college. For a while, she wasn’t sure she’d graduate from high school.

Today, she’s a proud graduate of the University of Washington (UW) Tacoma School of Social Work. And she’s an even prouder mother to her five-year-old son, Christian.

It’s Christian whom she credits with igniting her desire to push herself and achieve academic success. And it’s her 10th grade mentor who inspired her path forward.
Read more.

Survivor of Somali Civil War establishes love, work, and home in Seattle

Author: Maggie Wilson
Photographer: Renee Banks

Please be aware: This article includes the recounting of experiences during the Somali Civil War that are upsetting. They are also real experiences. Read compassionately. A version, that was edited for length, appeared in our Winter/Spring 2019 Newsletter.

Fadumo Daud heard a bomb coming, but she could not escape it.

She was a child then, with her younger sister beside her. Those who heard the bomb coming either ran or laid themselves down.

“(When bombs near) people go somewhere they think is safe,” Fadumo said.

Today, Fadumo lives in Seattle’s Columbia City, with her loving husband, Ahmed, and her three sons. With help from Seattle Milk Fund, her youngest son attends preschool, and her two older sons attend after-school programs while Fadumo works toward a bachelor’s degree in respiratory care at Seattle Central College.

Her middle son is 8 years old – the same age this year as she was in Somalia during the Civil War in 1991.

Fadumo juices carrots in bright mornings for her boys. Over winter, she took them to the Pacific Science Center.
Read more.

A Life-Changing Decision

by: April

I can still remember the exact moment I decided to change my life.

On a crisp fall day in 2013, a few months after I became a single mom, I decided to take a shortcut through the University of Washington campus with my then 3-year-old daughter in the backseat. We marveled at the trees and buildings as we drove. Glancing back in the rearview mirror I told my daughter, “You can go to school here one day you know.” She kept looking out the window, too young to grasp what I was telling her.

As soon as the words left my mouth, I had an epiphany—the best way to ensure that my daughter went to college, was not to tell her, but to show her. Graduating from college was something I had always wanted to accomplish and driving through campus that day I knew what I had to do. That night, at 31-years-old, I enrolled at North Seattle College and I never looked back. I began shaping mine and my daughter’s future from that moment on—the power to raise the bar was in my hands.
Read more.

The Power of Perseverance

Yelena was featured in our Summer | Fall Newsletter

If there’s one way to describe Yelena, it’s determined. She taught herself English and homeschooled her kids for a few years, while teaching them Ukrainian simultaneously. Despite the hardships she faced moving to Seattle from Ukraine, she never gave up in her path to providing her three children, Daniel, Darina, and David, with the best possible life.

It was never an option to give up or stop trying, so she kept going, and pushed through the long days and nights of studying, working, and taking care of a full household. While taking a prerequisite course in communication, she began to learn about relationships and how to better them through communication, which was her goal with her husband of 12 years. It wasn’t until she began to learn about domestic violence in this class that she realized that her husband was abusive and she shouldn’t be treated the way she was. Yelena ended her relationship with her husband after being told for so long that she wasn’t good enough, and feeling stuck and unable to do anything.

She was then on her own to take care of her three young children. Having been a stay at home mother until now, Yelena was determined to finish her education and get a degree at Lake Washington Institute of Technology.

“Failing wasn’t an option,” she said. This past winter quarter, she completed her associate’s degree and was recently hired by Infinity Rehab at Bethany at Silverlake, where she has begun her career as a Physical Therapy Assistant. Yelena describes the last four years as life-changing. She explains that she doesn’t know what she would have done without Seattle Milk Fund’s support.
Read more.

Tu, a current student grantee, spoke during our 2017 Annual Meeting & Brunch. Thank you, Tu for sharing your story.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I am currently a student grantee in Seattle Milk Fund’s Child Care Grant Program. My son and I have benefited greatly from your generosity in the last year. The grants have allowed me to attend and finish my degree at the University of Washington—Seattle, and for my son to attend after-school care at his elementary school. I will graduate with a Bachelor’s degree in mathematics with a teacher preparation option this summer, which I can follow to receive my Master’s in teaching.

Read more.

Thank you to Bryn, a current Seattle Milk Fund student who graciously accepted an invitation to speak to our guests at our Seattle Milk FUNd event in April. Here is the speech she shared with the audience.

It is such a pleasure to be here tonight to share my educational journey with you.

As a fair warning – this speech might involve some tears, but don’t worry, they are tears of honor and joy as I reflect upon some of the lowest and most terrifying moments of my life and realize how far I have come. They are tears of appreciation as I realize that I would not be where I am today without the support from people like you, and programs like the Seattle Milk Fund. Read more.