Damien was the student guest speaker at our recent 45th Anniversary event, where we welcomed current and former students, staff, community partners, and local lawmakers to honor VAL’s legacy. Damien shared his inspiring story about the path to VAL and how the friendly folks at our Middlebury Learning Center have helped him on his educational journey. We hope you enjoy reading Damien’s speech from that night as much as we enjoyed hearing it!
“Hey, hi, hello. I’m Damien, and I’ve come today to talk a bit about my time at VAL.
I was asked to speak today by one of my teachers because I still exist. I still exist. When I started at VAL, I was struggling with suicidal tendencies. Today, I am more me than I have ever been. For the first time, I am working towards goals that are actually mine, as opposed to the goals that everyone else set for me. VAL has helped me with this growth because no matter what happened the night before, I knew I would be coming into VAL the next day, where I had a support system that believed in me no matter what.
I am currently going to VAL because of my disability (POTS). POTS stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. It is a condition that means I struggle to maintain normal blood pressure, and blood literally pools in my legs and hands. This causes dizziness, blurred vision, and complete brain fog. Sometimes I’ll even just pass out. This means that it was harder for me to get around school because I would be dizzy and hot by the time I got from one class to the next. My brain just “left the chat” because my body couldn’t physically get blood to my brain. While I was in public school, I was also bullied, stared at, and talked badly about every day. At the end of my day, I would go home and sleep for the rest of it, because school was both physically and emotionally draining. It was genuinely nightmare fuel. It sucked.
A lot of things are different here at VAL. The people there are really flexible with students’ schedules. So much has changed for me since first coming to VAL, and they were able to accommodate those changes. I originally started online, then my schedule changed, so I decided to come in, and now I’m learning in person. Everyone is also so accepting, whether it is of someone’s disabilities or cultural differences. They view you as a person, not a paycheck. In public school, because I was never identified as super smart or super athletic, I felt like I didn’t have value, like I was overlooked. VAL feels more like being part of a community, and I feel like I am seen as a person, as someone with my own thoughts and feelings.
Also, VAL is such a vibe. They ALWAYS have snacks. I mean, seriously, what other school encourages you to eat in class or participate in a root beer tasting? It’s also such a vibe to go to school with such a diverse faculty (mostly consisting of old ladies, no offense). My old ladies are so nice, even the one who pretends to be mean. Sometimes, Ashlee brings her dog Grover in. Grover is the life of the party, and he sounds like a herd of turtles when he gets the zoomies. Even the building itself has an aura, a sort of chemistry that makes you want to go to school. It really is perfect.
It’s been difficult for me in the past to see a future, and when people have asked me where I see myself ten years from now, I have always just thrown together an answer to please them. None of my family has gone to college, so there was no expectation for me to do anything after high school, besides work. I want to be an FBI Profiler, which would give me a sense of purpose, and I would finally see that people will need me someday. This will require me to go to college. Working at VAL helped me start to bring this future to light.”
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Do you want to help learners like Damien illuminate their future? Consider making a gift to VAL today!