MEGAN’S STORY As Featured in Together Let Us Go Forth Magazine

BY JOYCE CORONEL; PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSEPH PILLADO

Pregnant, alone and rocked by anxiety, Megan tried her best to hide the morning sickness from staff at the halfway house where she was staying.

It wasn’t easy.

“I was just coming out of the darkest time of my life, and I was kind of freaking out because one of the rules there was you couldn’t be pregnant,” Megan said.

“I was scared. I really don’t know where I would be at all without Maggie’s Place just because life itself was so overwhelming at that time. I was just a bunch of emotions when I found out I was pregnant.” plus all the other living expenses that eat up a paycheck, she had time to grow as a person.

Maggie’s Place, a Phoenix-based non-profit, operates four maternity homes and two transitional apartment complexes for struggling women who are pregnant and homeless. Women can move in when they’re expecting and stay until their child turns 1 year old. While living there, the women develop goals and learn how to be self-sufficient.

It’s a godsend for moms like Megan who have nowhere else to turn. Since its founding in 2000, more than 1,100 women have lived in a Maggie’s Place home. Megan is one of them.

After two years of sleeping in her car or at friends’ houses, she was out of options when she got pregnant with Michael.

Cradling her now two-and-a-half-year-old son and sitting at the Maggie’s Place Family Success Center in Central Phoenix, an observer would be hard-pressed to discern that the attractive, confident young woman whose story pours forth with laughter and smiles once battled substance abuse and homelessness.

Megan was six months sober when a friend told her about Maggie’s Place.

“All of that is taken away when you’re in the house so you can focus on figuring everything else out. That big anxiety was taken away.”

She didn’t have a vehicle at the time, but she was given a bus pass. “That right there was another $30-$40 a month that I was able to not have to worry about and save.”

Living at Maggie’s Place, Megan also learned how to be part of a community.

“It forces you to learn how to monitor yourself and work with other people, which was good. I mean, it’s a lifelong skill. When you’re not really productive in society, you don’t really care

“When I first moved in, I shared a room with another mom,” Megan said. She’d gone from splitting a room with three other people at the halfway house to sharing a room with just one other expectant mom.

“I was like, this is amazing!” Megan said. And then there was the shampoo incident.

The Maggie’s Place donation closet provided personal hygiene items like shampoo and conditioner — and not the crummy kind, either. Relieved she didn’t have to pay $6 for a bottle of shampoo, Megan realized something: People actually cared about her.

She learned something else, too. Not having to worry about keeping a roof over her head or how she was going to survive paying for diapers, baby clothes and household supplies about getting along with other people.”

Maggie’s Place moms are given chores which rotate on a weekly basis. They also sit down at least twice a month with an AmeriCorps member who lives in the home alongside the moms and helps them develop a plan for reaching their goals.

Each Maggie’s Place mom also has a contact person (another AmeriCorps member) who walks them through the Seeking Safety program. The curriculum teaches the women how to set boundaries and how to pick up on red flags.

Perhaps the biggest lesson Megan learned while living at Maggie’s Place was that she mattered.

“There’s a lot that I learned about myself, but the biggest thing I guess is that I’m worth, like, whatever,” Megan said. “That I’m worth having love, that I’m valued and respected as a person … that it’s OK for me to think or have different wants than other people and that I can still be really good friends with you and we’re nothing alike.”

It’s a big change from the way things were when she first showed up at Maggie’s Place three years ago. Back then, she said, “I didn’t know anything about real life really, like how to be sober and just operate normally.”

Maggie’s Place residents attend classes to help them develop the skill set they’ll need to make it once they leave. Childcare is provided while they study topics such as how to handle money or how to prepare a meal. There’s also time to attend group sessions or pursue self-expression through art journaling or crafts. Even after they graduate and move out, alumni moms can attend weekly support group meetings and social events with childcare and dinner provided.

“The really cool thing about Maggie’s Place is that they support you as a mom and your kid, but they also support you as you,” Megan said.

Today, Megan is halfway through nursing school. Michael, the 2-year-old, has his own highlighters and his mom’s old textbooks to “study” while she pours over coursework. Jaxon, Megan’s second child, gurgles and smiles. He’ll be crawling soon.

Megan works part time as a Certified Nursing Assistant and also serves as a peer support specialist at Maggie’s Place. What’s it like trying to balance all that?

“Chaos!” Megan laughs. She’s learned to take life in stride, to be part of a caring community and to face her challenges with courage. As a peer support specialist, she’s providing mom-to-mom counseling for women going through the process she experienced. She’s that “one person” many young women don’t have in their lives, the one person who “gets it.”

“I know what it’s like not to have anyone in my corner like that,” Megan said.

Today, the twenty-something mother of two is thriving and giving back to the organization that rescued her. From having no one to suddenly being the go-to person for other moms, Megan has conquered her fears and found hope.

It’s love, really, that changed everything. And it all started at Maggie’s Place.