Vanessa Carter Inspires the HANDS Team
With the Hands Team movement, our organization gets to meet new and inspiring people every single day. Today was another one of those days. Through some friends we met at the University of Akron (Jessica Chapman, Kylee Cravens, and Emily Siharath) sending a mass e-mail to the students to help raise money for a local family fighting skin cancer, the HANDS Team met Vanessa Carter.
Vanessa is a news director and expert at our local radio station WZIP 88.1 fm, who after receiving the mass email requested to interview the HANDS Team. The one main thing I want to mention about Vanessa is how she is a living role model for what the HANDS Team stands for. Through our interview we came to learn more about the entrepreneurial spirit (Just one of many great attributes) of Vanessa and how she ended up quitting Einstein Bros. Bagels to chase her dream and pursue something she loves to do. Tired of building another persons dream, Vanessa put the knife and cream cheese down and started to chase her own dream! Whoa, I love when I see people chasing their dreams; they are always much happier then those who live others.
The reason I hate jobs is because I feel like they tie down our minds. Jobs that you don’t love make you stop dreaming, and like so many of our elders, you give up on your dream. As a lot of our elders say, “Come to reality and stop dreaming”. What does this crap mean, “Come to reality and stop dreaming”. My reality is what I make my reality, nothing more and nothing less. If I want to dream and become anything I want, the only person stopping me is myself. I hate to see people’s dreams ruined by jobs and negativity, because I know how amazing it feels to be living my dream. I know how free I feel when I can, “Do what I want to do, not what I’m supposed to do” as Vanessa put it in the interview, and I want others to feel that freedom. (This is the land of the FREE and the home of the brave right?)
This little story of how Vanessa quit her job to pursue her dreams inspired me. It reminds me of how over-coming hardships and making sacrifices is part of building a dream. With all of the obstacles the HANDS Team has had to overcome it makes me smile knowing another young dreamer is over-coming her own obstacles.
What are you doing to pursue your dreams?