Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Yeah.
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Hello everyone.
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I am religious Waller and this is the road to Ray where
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I would take you down a six stone roadway of my life.
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Starting off with the start to life
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I was born saturday may 3rd 1997 at 703 A. M.
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In Charlottesville Virginia to Alicia Henson and Ray Waller.
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From my early childhood,
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I like to say that I lived a very nomadic lifestyle meaning pretty much I moved a lot.
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Um I moved roughly about every year, year and a half.
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Um We didn't really stay in one place for too long. Um
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I think a lot of it had to do with my
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mom switching of employment being a single mother of five,
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but majority of the areas I lived is what's considered as
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you're low income or income based housing communities here in Charlottesville.
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So I lived in Gary Square, which is currently known as Friendship Court,
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South First Street, Hardy drive,
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sixth street as well as three different locations in Albemarle County,
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such as Mossy
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Forest, North Berkshire Road in Blue Ridge Avenue in Crozet Virginia.
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Um With moving a lot comes the switching of schools.
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Um I've attended every Charlottesville city school with the
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exception of alternative placement schools in three elementary schools.
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Um in regards to the county,
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I attended to county middle schools in one county elementary school.
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Um so I got to have a taste of both sides of the tracks when it
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comes to the county versus city schools as well as both sides of the tracks when it
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comes to just Charlottesville city schools and comparison
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of how I went from clark to Venable and
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seeing the difference in the teaching styles and
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the kids that attend based off of districting.
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Another part of my early childhood has been athletics.
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I am a huge lover of basketball.
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Um I started playing basketball when I was seven with Parks and Recreation,
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where I then later grew into becoming a stronger athletic
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player for basketball.
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And I joined an au team locally known as the lady
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crusaders and then eventually joined the shots for high school teams.
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Where I won two conference 23 championships while being captain of the
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team as well as was a Charlottesville high school varsity sideline cheerleader.
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Another huge part which is one of the
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Biggest accomplishment in my life is the community outreach
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that I did when I was a kid.
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Um in 2012,
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the start of something great happened in Charlottesville and
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that was the start of city of promise.
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And I joined as one of the first seven
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students of city of promise here in Charlottesville.
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Next for me was college.
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Um I attended the illustrious Virginia State University
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where they offer you a transformative education experience.
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I majored in criminal justice, with a minor in political science and sociology.
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Um I went into the criminal justice field
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After my cousin sage went missing in 2012 and I
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never could understand how someone could disappear without a trace.
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So for me it was more so personal than thinking
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about what I fully wanted to do as a career.
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Um and I added on political science and sociology because I
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felt like you need to learn to understand policies and social behaviors
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in order to be in the criminal justice field,
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if that's what I was going to end up pursuing at the end of my journey of Virginia state
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um from colleges,
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parenthood while I was in my junior year averaging state university,
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um I gave birth the second semester to my daughter Raylan Rose.
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Um
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I love to cut it off at the roads because I like the two RS,
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but um I had her on 0202 2020 and that
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was one journey in itself um with childbirth for me,
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but also being able to balance becoming a first time parent as well as my full time
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education.
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Um so that was something that I hold as one of
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my biggest accomplishments today was completing college while being a mother.
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Next we have career.
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Um currently I am a pathway to the middle school pathway coach for
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Charleville city of promise and for me it's full circle because I started off
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as one of the first seven founding youth members of the organization and
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now to come back as a pathway coach to show the youth like,
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hey you too can do this and don't give me the
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excuse that you can't because of where you come from because
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I'm from here to, and I did it.
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So um, that is something that I just find great within itself um,
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with me working here.
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Um, part time from here,
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I am the new Buford Middle School cheer coach where I
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have a team of 13 amazing young women um that I
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coach and teach them a little bit about life and becoming
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a young lady in how to carry themselves as such.
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And lastly, um, one thing to know about me, I feel that's very important is my, why,
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why I do what I do, why I work as a pathway coach,
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why I've been a substitute teacher in the past,
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why I work for parks and rec and why I'm always working with kids.
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And that is simply because I want to show you that community faces, changed faces.
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I really want you to know that they can change any space that they enter.
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It does not matter that you lived in low income,
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it does not matter if you did not come from low income,
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you have the power and the ability to change every
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space you enter when you are from this community.
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And I've always seen the difference in towards your own behavior and
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how they act in class when it's me in the room for
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someone that don't relate to them or that's not from our community
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and it's very important for them to know what impact that they have
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on the spaces that they enter.
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Because I know every space that I enter I'm impacting just off of being there.
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Thank you.