Having started my professional career in 1996, I completed my nursing assistant clinicals and received my certification through the Phoenix Shanti Group. Afterwards, I worked at Hospice of The Valley in Tucson and lockdown Alzheimer’s units. My interest in human rights began with college involvement with writing letters for Amnesty International as well as volunteering at local DV shelters throughout the late nineties and into the 2000’s. My community involvement in Bisbee began with a year spent doing peer support and working with high needs children at the now defunct Arizona and Counseling and Treatment Services as well as a brief stint writing for the local Bisbee paper, The Observer. Throughout this, I acquired a deep understanding of helping others in delicate moments of their lives – treating our society’s most vulnerable with empathy and compassion is how I view community.
I also have the lived experience of homelessness after domestic violence, along with the maladaptive coping mechanisms that accompany such an experience. Addiction truly is a disease that is compounded by isolation and shame; the support I found in Bisbee became the antidote to that.
It is with humility and deep gratitude that I am able to give back to the community of Bisbee, without whose care and love in the most vulnerable time of my life, I would not be here.