Susan LeBlanc

Transcript

the year is 1997 and I'm a high school kid struggling to get through school when I suddenly find myself living on my own for the first time and I have to go on welfare you know to survive and amid the complex math equations that are swirling around my head or worries about how to pay the rent and how to get to school and how am I going to take care of Tabitha that's my tabby cat and I love to pour my thoughts out onto the page I love to write poetry always have and while I'm doing this one day I have an idea but it's

going to take some courage because I'm going to have to talk to people and well that's really terrifying I tear three pages out of my book of poems and I head downtown on a bus and I get to the mall there and I'm scanning the crowd for a friendly face and I see her she's got red hair middle a AG long green skirt looks really friendly and suddenly my brain is just yelling at me go go now and my feet are propelling me forward and I suddenly find myself in front of her like she's right there and my mouth it just blurts out um Excuse

Me Miss I'm a high school kid and I'm wondering if you'd like to buy one of my poems and she looks at me and she says oh well how much crap I hadn't even thought of that just just a kid remember whatever you want to give is fine is what I say she gives me a dollar and I am thrilled because I had no idea that this was going to work and this becomes my new way of making money for a while for myself for Tabitha and while I'm down there selling my poetry I find solace in a group of Street kids who many have

come from you know traumatic backgrounds many of them are unhoused and we become friends and we start hanging out and one day one of my street kid friends put a squeegee in my hand and says hey Swan that's what they called me did you know that you can make money washing car windows at the stoplight and I'm like what they're like yeah man it's all the rage and it was back in the 80s and 90s squeegeeing was all the rage and I think to myself you know I've been getting really good at talking to people I feel like maybe I could do this and so

I try it I Propel my squeegee onto the windshield of a car and I I'm yelling don't worry it's free because that's what we say we want a donation and the guy gives me a dollar and this becomes my new way of making money for a while until one day one of my squeegee colleagues tells a newspaper reporter that she can make $200 a day day washing car windows it's not true at the most we might make like 30 bucks in a shift and much to my surprise when this article gets published business plummets I learned the value of media that day whether it's true

or not and I'm mad because there is nothing I can do I'm just a kid and let's face it this is among the adults now so I knew the only thing that I know how I write an angry letter to the editor of that newspaper I mean did they even fact check obviously not and in my letter I include a little budget breakdown of my rent and food and bus fair to get to school and food for Tabitha of course can't forget her and to my surprise they publish it but what was even more amazing was that business picked back up in fact a lot

of our customers were now remarking on how they really enjoyed learning about the life of a squeegee kid I mean they had no idea and why would they I guess I learned a really valuable lesson at this point in my life I had found my power and I knew how to use it and from that moment forward in my life I made a rule if ever anything was scary I had to do it more recently this has had me repelling down 80 M waterfalls and hanging off the edge of the sea and Tower and standing on this stage right now because yeah this is scary

and that's the message that I want to leave with you today we can do hard things right and when we do when we say yes to that that's where we find our power thank you

Transcript generated from the recording and lightly cleaned. Some names and wording may differ from the spoken speech.