So, I imagine when like,
like you said you're gonna put the blindfolds on us,
when we take it off, I imagine the house would be the brick stones
and when we go in the house, it's gonna be
amazing to look at because it's all finished through
the whole process it's been going through.
My name is Lakisha Atkins,
I'm a mother of 5
I work for the state of New York.
College graduate.
Widow.
I live in a 4 bedroom project apartment,
it's all I can afford right now going from
2 incomes to 1.
You know, so, y'know it's just...
a right now.
I imagine our house-
our next house like,
there's just more room overall, you feel me,
more room to move around, walk around, more space to do things that we wanna do, as in
if he wants to run around or if he wants to go sit in a room, or if she wanna go somewhere
and dance or if she wanna go somewhere and do her makeup like, it'd be more space for
everybody to do their own thing.
I'm most excited about uhm
my kids
being excited
to bring friends home.
Where we live now, they don't bring anyone
over to our apartment because
they're kindof ashamed of it.
Finally have our own house where
we can basically do whatever we want to it.
We've been waiting a long time for that,
I believe right, waiting a long time to finally do what we want.
I think they'd be proud of me, y'know..
because I really think that kids don't understand
the hard work, y'know, that you
do daily.
They just think it's so easy,
"oh you're supposed to get up,
you're supposed to do this, you're supposed to do that."
But...
building our house is something that I'm not supposed to do-
it's something that easily somebody else can do but being that I take the time out to do it,
I think they'd be proud of me.
I take my days off to do it, y'know, because it's-
it's gonna be ours.
And I don't want everybody to do everything for me-
-I never did.
Y'all excited?
Yes!
What are you most excited about?
The house!
My room!
I'm about to play all that Black Ops!
All that Black Ops!
You excited, Lakisha?
Yes, I'm truly excited!
But I'm more excited that I'm doing this for y'all, not for me, this is for y'all.
So if something ever happened to me,
y'all can have something that nobody can kick you out of.
*Screams*
Ohhhhhhh
Oh my god!
That looks so nice!
Wow!
That is nice, that is beautiful.
Y'all happy?
Yes!
Yo, that's nice
Woooow
That's nice!
He would've loved it, y'know-
He would've been-
he would've been so happy and
so proud of me.
Y'know, anything I ever accomplished, he was right there by my side.
And you know, it would have been-
not only he would've been happy for me,
he would've been happy for us.
This is all for y'all, this is not for me.
This is why I work so hard, for y'all-
It's for us.
This is for us.
That's why I go so hard, that's why I'm so hard on y'all
because I couldn't have things like this.
When people cutting me out, like I always gotta be in-
and once I had kids-
I live for y'all not for me.
I know I may be crazy when you ask so much but
I just want the best for y'all.
I don't want you to have to go down the same road I go down
Nobody believed in me, but I believe in y'all
this is for y'all, this is not for me.
I would say to the person that's donating this tree to me, my family, my legacy-
I would say thank you.
Thank you for thinking highly of me.
Thank you for making this a part of my story,
a part of my chapter,
and just bringing a light
to me as a person,
and showing other women
who are single parents who may not be in a great situation,
that these positive things can happen for you as well
if you just take the first step.
And again, keep the faith, keep the hope and work hard for it.
Stuff like this can happen,
and I really appreciate it
from the bottom of my heart.