:Vocalo.org

I've been blessed with lots of great opportunities: as one of only two Christian raised teenagers on a Holocaust rediscovery journey, I got to spend three weeks with first, second and third generation Jewish survivors. The trip was ran through an Orthodox organization, so the customs and rituals were certainly foreign to me, though the emotion was not... as the only East sider at a community theatre in Cleveland where I worked my first job, I saw lots of folks different than me, but with the same passion for art.

After a film degree from the South and lots more great opportunities, I arrived in Chicago without a job or really much of a plan. I figured I'd work for This American Life -- who else could be, right? I soon found that there were many, many other, usually more experienced and qualified people that wanted the same unpaid internship, so I kept searching.

After teaching documentary very part time and working as a personal assistant for a man with muscular dystrophy, I was invited into a remarkable new program starting at the Howard Area Community Center in Rogers Park. At our youth center, kids ten to eighteen years old make projects with computers: audio, video, Photoshop- thier ideas. It's a great job and as I see myself sorrounded daily with people a different color than me, a different age than me and from a different background than me, I feel right at home again.