I was the oldest of three children raised by a single mom. We lived on a street that was the dividing line between two gang territories, one of the most dangerous streets in the city. There were drive-by shootings all the time. I ducked and hit the floor every time I heard gunfire.

That was my childhood until the day of sixth grade graduation when my whole class walked into the auditorium together and found it filled with balloons and cameras. Eugene Lang told us we were the first class to be adopted by the "I Have A Dream" Foundation in Los Angeles, and that if we stayed in school, they would pay for us to go to college. I thought, "So what?" I didn't know or care who those people were.

In seventh grade, I became a real teenager. I wanted to be me, and I didn't want any grown-ups sticking their nose in my business. I stayed away from "I Have A Dream", never went to tutoring, and never got to know my project coordinator. My grades started to go down, and by the end of the year, I was nearly flunking out.

"I Have A Dream" wouldn't give up on me. They called and called and called. Then they called my mother. She dragged me to a tutoring session; that was the beginning. The day everything changed, though, was the day of a field trip. "I Have A Dream" took me to see snow at Christmas-time, and the Project Coordinator started to talk to me and ask questions about absolutely everything. I realized, right then, in the middle of the first snow of my life, that they were not the enemy. By the end of eighth grade, I was close to getting all As again.

By high school, I was tutoring in the "I Have A Dream" tutoring center. In tenth grade,  "I Have A Dream" flew me to New York City to speak at the United Nations when Eugene Lang was honored for his work with children. I spoke about my life, and how I had changed because of  "I Have A Dream".

I have plenty of friends from my old neighborhood who went the other way. I had a friend who tried to get out of a gang and was set up and shot in the back of the head. I had a friend who committed suicide during high school by walking onto the 110 Freeway. I have a friend who is serving twenty-five years in prison.

In twelfth grade,  "I Have A Dream" took us on a tour of historically black colleges. We went to Tuskegee, Morehouse and Spellman. I saw all those students who looked like me. On the plane home, I remember thinking, "I'm going to college. 'I Have A Dream' is sending me to college."

Now, I am a graduate of California State University at Dominguez Hills with a degree in Business Administration, and I am a licensed realtor.

Because of what  "I Have A Dream" did for me, my younger sister decided to stay in school. My mother, who had dropped out in the ninth grade, went back to school and graduated from high school. My sister has graduated from college, and my mother from nursing school.

My daughter, Chelsea, is only in kindergarten. She's just starting to read, but I already have plans for her to go to college. I am going to do for her what  "I Have A Dream" did for me. And then she's going to do it for her children. Who could have imagined on the day I walked into my sixth grade graduation, that three generations of my family - and all the generations to come - would have been changed by the promise "I Have A Dream" made to me.

When people ask me what  "I Have A Dream" has meant to me, I say that my life is like two bowls. One was empty, and the other filled with candy. That candy is the love, the home, the guidance, the opportunity - and the dream.

Shaniece