Dreaming Big

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional basketball player. Not in the WNBA; it wasn't even around yet. I wanted to be the first woman in the NBA. No matter what my friends, family, or coaches thought of that idea, they all supported it.

My dad's favorite saying was, "If you think you can, you can. If you think you can't, you're right." When he was growing up, he didn't have a father, he got in all sorts of trouble, dropped out of high school, and joined the army during Vietnam. With help from my mom and the GI Bill, he was able to further his education and build a successful career in hospital administration. This allowed my family to move from a run-down neighborhood into a house with grass, a swingset in the backyard, and a good school system. Lots of people say that anything is possible, but I truly believe it.

When I moved to Baltimore to attend medical school, I was taken aback by a different atmosphere-- and atmosphere of demoralization. One student at Dunbar told me, "I'm just going to end up in jail anyway, so why try?" Other expressed frustration that they couldn't wait at a bus stop without being labeled a drug dealer. Many students who were performing poorly felt rejected by the school system and came to view teachers as adversaries rather than advocates. They felt like no one wanted them to succeed or even thought they could.

And then I met someone who had even bigger dreams than I did. Sarah wanted to inspire these teenagers to put faith in their educations. She wanted them to invest all their energy into achieving a future they didn’t even think was possible. Many thought IMP was a lost cause, but in 2007, I had the privilege of watching these teenagers graduate high school and go off to college to pursue their own dreams.

The accomplishments of these students make them heroes to everyone around them. To me, however, it doesn’t matter whether IMP has a 100% graduate rate or a 0% graduation rate. I would still have dedicated my afternoons, evenings, and weekends to tutoring and counseling these teenagers because I have one goal: to demonstrate that I believe in them. Everyone deserves to dream big, even if we don’t all end up in the NBA.

~Melissa (IMP Volunteer)