I'll never forget the day I went to juvenile court
and was granted my emancipation.
That day I felt like I never had to be afraid again.
I felt like my chains were broken.
And I was finally free.
My parents were divorced when I was four.
Before I knew it my dad disappeared altogether, leaving my sister and I to be raised by my
mother who was addicted to drugs and alcohol.
I didn't wanna focus on all of the negativity in my home life,
so I involved myself in everything in school.
I was in volleyball, I was in theatre, I was the captain of my track and field team,
I tutored children at the boys and girls club, I served as a deacon and greeter at my church,
I was the vice president of student government, I had a job at Baskin-Robbins,
and I was the vice president of our volunteer organisation at school.
And I was a straight-A student.
Meanwhile, nobody knew what I was going home to.
My mom always had different male figures in our house, trying to be our dad,
who were usually abusive verbally and physically.
The police were over at our house every other weekend.
She even evicted my sister and I when we were 13.
She ended up getting help and going to AA, but
after we moved back in with her, her sickness came back.
And she was back to drinking and doing drugs.
The last day I spoke to or saw my mom, she turned all of the electricity off in my
home, and turned all the water off, and took all of the food out of the fridge
and told us we couldn't have any.
And told us that we had to leave our house
and that she never wanted to see us ever again.
I would pray every night as a little girl.
I'd pray that God would help us.
Prayed to help my sister and I. I'll never forget the day
I went to juvenile court and was granted my emancipation.
That day I felt like I never had to be afraid again.
I felt like my chains were broken.
And I was finally free.
Hello future Lilly or whomever it may concern.
Tonight is the night before my emancipation hearing and hopefully, it goes well tomorrow.
Got a text from my biological father and got Interpol for kidnapping and there's a
lot of drama happening right now, it's too much to write down, it's too much
to express and whatever happens,
I'm going to remember this for the rest of my life and will hopefully
not make the same mistake with my own kids.
So, hopefully, everyone prays for me tomorrow and hopefully, it all goes well.
That video clip is of me when I was 17, I'm currently 24 and seven years later
that video is so hard for me to watch.
But as I watch that video, I think, "she's 17 and she's so strong.
I am so proud of that girl!"
I always knew the situation I was growing up in wasn't "normal"
because I had parents of friends and police officers and
random strangers all tell me that the situation I was in wasn't okay.
But I didn't know any better.
And once I got my freedom, I completely understood.
It's so hard to describe, but I guess it's kind of like somebody who's blindfolded all
of their life and then one day they have the blindfold taken
off and you realise, "wow!
This is what it feels like?
Now I understand!"
My senior year of high school felt like a dream.
I no longer sat in school with fear of going home.
I vividly remember one day falling to my knees, crying, thanking God
because I had won every single scholarship I had applied to
and had just found out that day that I, I was chosen out of 27,000 applicants to win
a $20,000 scholarship from Footlocker, presented by Boston Marathon winner Meb Keflezighi.
In that moment I decided that in the future I was going to create a scholarship fund
for students to be able to attend school, who like me, didn't have any financial support.
In fact, my senior year of high school, I gave away my first scholarship.
I didn't have a lot of money at the time because I was 17,
but I saved up money from working at Baskin-Robbins and presented a student at my school with
$1000.
I just created a Youtube channel last week called "Give Freedom Art,"
in hopes that with enough subscribers, I can earn money with Youtube and put that money
towards helping other students and blessing families
all around the world.
I decided to call the channel Give Freedom Art
because I wanted to inspire people who might be going through tough times to choose positive
outlets, like crafting, like I did when I was growing
up, to distract them from the negativity in their
world.
In each video, I make a craft and then pick a random subscriber to win the craft,
and I ship it anywhere in the world for free.
In my videos, I'm pretty silly, I'm actually a bit of a goofball,
I just hope that through my funny videos and through my free crafts that I can
bring a smile to somebody's face and bring more positivity to this world.
When I was growing up I would always tell myself, "choose faith over fear."
I hope my story reminded you to never give up, stay strong and have hope.