Loni’s Story

Loni readily admits that her home life wasn’t always the best. She says, “In ninth grade, my mom started dating an abusive drug addict. But I was an all-star softball player and thought ‘no one can touch me, nothing can harm me – I’m a jock.’ I was wrong. The constant drama at home started affecting me and bled into my school life. I started skipping class and ditching school. Things continued to escalate with my mom and her boyfriend while my grades dropped. I started using pills and weed to calm my constant anxiety. Eventually my mom broke things off with the boyfriend and filed for a restraining order, but only after he threw her through a window, pinned her to the ground and threatened to kill her.”

 "I was an all-star softball player and thought no one can touch me, nothing can harm me – I’m a jock. I was wrong. "

In the middle of her challenges at home, Loni found out she was pregnant and thought she had no choice but to drop out of school and become a teen parent. An unexpected miscarriage led her to refocus on high school, but classmates bullied her for losing the child. She and her mother found PACE Center for Girls at a time when she had no interest in graduating, but once she gave PACE a chance, her GPA rose. She looks forward to graduating high school then going to college to study graphic design and get an MBA.