• Perspectives
• Dorothy Stanley

Dorothy Stanley

“After you go through STRIVE and graduate, it’s just the beginning of the rest of your life. Every day now, I tell mychildren, ‘As far as this world, you get only what you put into it and you have to go forward.’ And as long as you say, ‘I can, I can, I can, I can’ and have that motivation and the people behind you, you can do anything you want to do. And that’s what I like about STRIVE. They’re always there for you: they’re friends, a family away from home. That’s what this place is. They make sure they push you, make sure you get what you need, and they don’t let you slack. They knew that I was a person who would get going, and they wouldn’t let me stop until I got there.”

“After you go through STRIVE and graduate, it’s just the beginning of the rest of your life. Every day now, I tell my children, ‘As far as this world, you get only what you put into it and you have to go forward.”

Dorothy grew up in Baltimore in a large family, and as a child she “wanted to do a lot of things, but mostly, I wanted to help people.” She loved school; math was her favorite subject. She earned her high school diploma at Mergenthaler Vocational-Technical Senior High School. Before enrolling in STRIVE, Dorothy worked at a supermarket. She decided to enroll in the STRIVE program to gain skills that would enable her to get a better job. As a single parent, she considers herself “a strong provider” for herself and her children. “First and foremost,” she says, “I’m a parent.” A 2002 graduate of STRIVE, she has been steadily progressing in her career and is now an operator at a plastic motor machine company.