Hello to all of you beautiful people! I wanted to introduce myself so that as our organization grows you can all get to know this family of ours and get a sense of who we are as individuals and what we have set forth as our goals. My name is Antonia but you can call me Toni for short. As one of the eldest daughters of Colette and The at 20 years of age, I am currently finishing up my second year of college. I have chosen to major in Psychology because I have always been positive in mental health and in social work! I dream of bettering our society in a way that mental health is talked about regularly so that no one feels as though they are alone and struggling internally with no support.
When I first decided on majoring in psychology I wasn't exactly sure what kind of career I wanted to get out of it. I just knew that I was supposed to do something BIG. I knew that there was a barrier around the topic of mental health and it needed to be brought down. Often times many patients and family members who have gone through a traumatic event are taken care of physically but not mentally. Once they leave the hospital no one reaches back out to see how they are holding up at home. At the end of each day, I would come home and talk to my mom about school and my degree and she would talk to me about her experiences with her doctors. One day we got to talking about what we needed more of from the hospital. I knew something was missing, we knew something was lacking. Suddenly, it just clicked and in an instant it started to come together. Each one of our family members, in their own way, contributed a piece to the puzzle. We all have a passion for the medical field, nutrition, mental health, physical health and so much more.
My mom and stepdad started pulling it all together and as cheesy as it sounds it all starting making sense to me. I knew we were about to do something big. We all knew it. Not only were our parents very experienced in the medical field but we also had gone through the experience of having our mother be the patient getting chemotherapy, having surgery, enduring radiation, and going to and from doctors appointments for over nine months. We witnessed many different perspectives that we could utilize to bring awareness to our cause.
I am continuing my schooling to get my degree so that I can better serve our organization and all of our clients. I will also continue to help us grow each and every day as an outreach program. We want to make connections in this community because in today's world everyone’s lives have been touched by cancer in one way or another. We do not need to go through it alone! We can build a beautiful foundation where we take care of one another and our families. My family and I want to assist in any way possible whether that is advocating for our clients at doctors appointments, supplying meals for you and your family or setting you up with a support group. We will happily do that and so much MORE!
Welcome to W.A.Y.S!