MY BACKGROUND
I've called Gallatin home for the past five years and I've been living in middle Tennessee for more than a decade. My roots are in a small farm town in Western New York. Raised by the children of farmers, my childhood was filled by lessons of self reliance and hard work, and there were never promises of life being fair. In between those lessons, I was also taught the importance of helping others when you can, and showing up for your community. All of these things have guided the moral compass I have today, and are big reasons why I'm running for County Commission.
Through my young adulthood, I faced moments of adversity that galvanized my moral compass and laid
the ground work for my platform as a politician. I lived in a poor black neighborhood in Rochester, NY and saw day to day the struggle of a people that saw their city turn its back on them. I traveled to Nepal, one of the poorest countries in the world, and saw the joy and perseverance that accompanied the lack of belongings. Some of the happiest people I had met in my life to that point were people and families living on mountain tops, in stick and mud homes. While I was in college in Tennessee, I saved my best friend's life from an unknown drug overdose on our living room couch. A few months later he died from a seizure while no one was home. The first time I tried college, I failed out of school.
Adversity teaches you that your journey through life is unique - that very few people have gone through the things you have. But, more importantly, it teaches you that this is a two-way street. Other people have gone through events or moments in their lives that you couldn't imagine having to deal with physically or mentally. It teaches you empathy, and it teaches you that each struggle is temporary. After I failed out of college, I picked myself back up from failing out of college and I now have an Associate's, Bachelor's, and Master's degree.
Just like in our personal lives, we can make the choice of how to react towards adversity in government. I'm choosing to react with action. I plan to speak up for what I believe in and work against any opposition I have to better the lives of people in Sumner County. People deserve to flourish and enjoy their lives, and I believe it's a government's responsibility to provide the conditions for that to happen.