How It All Started

Before there was the Friendly Neighborhood Planner or the Urban Planning Life website there was a 16-year-old girl whose life was set to change.

Here I was 16 years old and one semester into my junior year in high school, and my mother decided we were going to move from Redlands, a place we have been living since I was 8 years old, to Moreno Valley. Now, don’t get me wrong I have always been the adventurous one out of my siblings. Quite simply, I am one to never back down from a dare, challenge or change to be honest (just ask my brother).

But, this change was unacceptable, as I had one year left to graduate! So, no I didn’t want to be uprooted to a new high school, but my mother is Southern at heart and what she said goes (I can laugh about it now but back then it was a tragedy).

We quickly learned that this school district did not provide bus transportation for high school students and I lived 3-4 miles away from school.  I wasn’t a privileged child born with a silver spoon in my mouth, and didn’t have a car.

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