HUMANS
OF AHOB
A series of stories from the
incredible humans who make up
A House on Beekman
"Before the pandemic started, I started saving money, but then the pandemic happened and I had to stop saving my money and spend it on my family. They needed it because, well the world’s been changed and my family needed food. They needed furniture.
I would like to have a career. I want to go to college and graduate. My mom didn’t get to go to college. I want to be a doctor and save people’s lives. Or if someone’s having a hard time, to help with their feelings. Like a therapist. My family wants me to graduate from college and get a job. A big job. A career. In order to graduate college I need money, support, and some courage, because right now I feel like I don’t have the courage.
— ANGELICA —
I want to have courage, and I also want to have God by my side, protecting me from danger that’s happened in my life. I want to not be shy. In my classroom, since my classroom is big, and there’s so many other people, I'm definitely shy. Sometimes, I bend my knees so I look shorter.
The state test is coming up at the end of the year. Luckily in third grade I passed it because I studied, but now that I'm in fourth grade, I need to study a lot more. Sometimes I feel like I need to have some fun, but fun has to be in one corner and studying has to be on the other side. Since we practice math problems in after school, I feel very confident sometimes because I’ve learned new strategies. In school, I get to show other kids the strategies that they may not learn at school.
My parents didn't get the education they needed. But now it’s a new year, and they have me by their side. They also help me a lot, because they are helping me learn and process through everything. Sometimes I have breakdowns at school. I don't like to talk about it. But the teachers, my friends, have helped me there. They are always by my side.
Sometimes there are fights in my class. Especially in art, there are tremendous fights that I get scared of, and it affects my learning. I wish the school would prevent the fights. In my school they only have one security guard, but she’s mostly on her phone all the time. Maybe they can add a few more security guards in the rooms who can check up on the scholars.
Here at AHOB, I feel safe. Everyone here makes me feel safe, the kids and the adults. They want education for me, and they have walls around me. And they protect me every step of the way."
“How would I describe myself? I am smart, kind. A little bit sad and happy. I have a lot of anxiety. I get furious sometimes. I keep myself safe. I play with my best friends. I do good things, bad things, unusual things. One time I made ice cream in summer camp. I like studying. I like math, I like ELA, I like science. I like birthday parties. I like being things I like to be.
I’m very talented. I’m good at gymnastics. One time I did a split and someone was like, “Oh, he broke his bone!” and I literally got right up and he said, “how did you do that!?” They were so impressed.
Sometimes, I do things without permission. Once I put on a movie with my mom’s money!
One time I went on a circus wheel. Those things that go around and around with little seats that bring you up in the air then down again. That was the best moment. It cost a lot of tickets for four people. It cost $24 for four people. It cost $6 each, so $24. It was very fun but scary at the same time. I closed my eyes. I felt a breeze. It was autumn. Actually, it was right next to the summer solstice. So it was spring. I was with my dad and my little sister.
— OUSMANE —
Something I learned to do that I feel proud of is how to be a good leader and a good citizen. Being good at school and being very smart make me proud. Being a good citizen means I listen to instructions in school, I study, I share a lot of things even though I don’t want to. I follow myself in my heart. My heart is full of God.
I’m really smart in school. My teacher already knows I know the answers so she doesn’t pick on me. I feel okay about that.
Getting detention gets me fired up and angry. I used to be in detention in my class. In this class, my teacher says the H word. She comes from Italy. Kids get detention for talking, doing work they’re not supposed to, not being a leader, taking your mask off, screaming, pushing desks.
When I’m a grownup, I want to be very polite and not screaming and swearing at people. I want to go to college. In college, it’s like all of your dreams are in your heart. I want to teach college. I want to teach about those triangles where you put numbers around them. It starts with a P. Like if there’s a 6 on the bottom and a four on one side and a 2 on the other. It’s the Parathical Theory I think. I learned about it on a Youtube channel.”
“I made a book with my nana. It’s a book about budgeting called iBudget. It shows you how to budget and use your money correctly and how to save. Don’t waste it, put it in a bank account so you can use it later on. You have to use your money wisely. If you want to know more about budgeting, you just have to read the book! You can buy it on Amazon. It’s a coloring book so kids can have fun with it. It won’t be boring for them.
It was kind of fun to write a book. It was a lot of work. You have to put in very much detail, you’ve got to write the words and add drawings to match. My nana did the drawings on her computer. I helped my nana with the ideas, a lot of the words and the details. And I told her at the end it should show our bios with stuff about us. So far we exceeded $300 from people buying the book.
Kids at school pick fights with me. They don’t really say anything. They just come up to me and hit me. Maybe it’s because I'm new to the school. And maybe because they think I'm probably weak, and a nerd to mess with. No offense to nerds. I want to be a nerd. But they probably think that in their minds they can bully me because I'm skinny, you know? And if I hit them back I get in trouble because I'm new in the school. Every time the other kid gets sent to the nurse. I don’t get sent to the nurse. And I get sent home if I win the fight. I listen to what my mom and dad say, that I should fight back to protect myself. But the teachers don’t allow me to fight back. I don’t think violence makes things better. I don’t want to fight other kids. I just want to be chill.
— CARMELO —
Sometimes kids tease me about the fact that my dad is in jail. He’s locked up because he got framed. He comes out sometime, he’s gonna find out in February 2022 when he’s coming back. He got accused of something he didn’t do. It’s really sad. It happened when I was four or three.
My dad is a big strong man. I look just like him. He has dreads like me. He says they’re getting long. He doesn’t celebrate Christmas but he got me two things. He got me two games. We get 20 minute phone calls. They stopped doing in person visits because of Covid. When he gets out, he’s gonna be in Virginia then he’s gonna come here to see me. When he gets back, we’re gonna go out and have some fun. Like we’re probably gonna go to an arcade, then at the end of the day we’re gonna get some food, then we’re gonna go home and play some video games. I was gonna ask for a PS5 for Christmas but I didn’t want to do it until my dad comes back. Then we can go get it together.”
"I worried a lot as a kid. We didn’t have much, and I was perceptive that some months we didn’t have much food. I remember one Thanksgiving, we didn’t have the money to get a turkey or the kinds of holiday foods we normally had, and my dad called us to the door and there were bags and bags of groceries. I was probably five or six. That really cemented itself in my mind, that someone would do that and not even tell us who they were. For me, as a fearful kid, that went so much further than the fact that we had extra food. It was a reminder that God was going to take care of us.
I think my little self would be happy to see that I now know I don’t have to feel fearful all the time, that I am choosing to lean into courage and learning to come out of fear, that it’s worth it when you know you’re doing the right thing or when you know you’re headed in the right direction. I’m learning to be my authentic self. And every time I lean into it, I’m that much more effective. Because it’s natural, and it’s not coming from a place of what I think is expected, but it’s coming from a place of true agency. And it’s taken me a long time to learn that.
In my role as executive director, whether it’s fundraising, supporting staff, board meetings, every piece of what I do points back to the reason we’re here, which is to empower our kids and this community and give them the tools they need to thrive and be what God made them to be. When I get overwhelmed, that’s always what I go back to. That’s my number one dream for our kids, that they’ll develop tools that will allow them to not just survive from day to day, but to move into a life where they can thrive. I desire for all of our kids to be able to live from a place of courage rather than fear, to lean into their full self, whatever that’s supposed to be.
I still struggle with anxiety. Leading this organization, I worry about having the funds we need to sustain and grow in the ways I dream we will. I dream of all of our programs being under one roof one day. It’s very hard to be scattered around the neighborhood and feel like people really understand what all we offer without being able to visually see that we are one organization. I’d love to be able to offer more services to entire families, more recreational opportunities, more extracurricular opportunities, more parent opportunities. I do feel like we have a lot of room to build on the safe foundation we've established.
You know, a lot of organizations say that they’re relational, that they really care about the whole person. But I’ve never seen it lived out the way I’ve seen it lived out over the nearly twelve years I’ve been working here. Trust, relationship, and unconditional love and acceptance of everyone who walks through our doors truly is the backbone of who we are.
I think a life well-lived looks like allowing great suffering to shape you into greater love. To see the entire picture of your life with all of the challenges included in the mix as being necessary to bring you to a place where you learn what really matters and live into that. And for me that means finding the place of your intersection with the world, and you’re aware of how miniscule you are, and how important you are all at the same time."
— SLOAN —