An Advocate's Heart

A story about a true public servant (and some extras I couldn't include); plus, planting a more beautiful world, a sprinkler takes Philly, and a few other things I'm enjoying.

Hello readers,

Welcome to August!

There comes a time in every writer's life when the story they've been assigned has a budgeted word count that is much, much smaller than the story they've found. The above piece – about Alexandria Ayala, the very talented new chief executive officer of the Homeless Coalition of Palm Beach County – is a perfect example of that. What you see is a 500-word account of what Ayala aims to do as head of this organization. What you don't see is all the wonderful backstory I had to cut about who Ayala is apart from this title and why she has such an activist's heart.

So I'm going to share some of that with you here today, in hopes that you'll scroll back up and read the piece I wrote about this incredibly smart and driven young woman.

When Alexandria Ayala was seven years old, her parents decided to move from Puerto Rico to South Florida in search of opportunity. Ayala was the only child, niece and grandchild on the mother's side of her family and recalls growing up very happy and empowered to be herself because she was surrounded by nurturing adults. Then came a shock to the family unit: her father died of stomach cancer when she was age 12.

"I spent a lot of time in a hospital with my dad, before that," she recalls. "But I also grew up seeing my grandmother be head nurse at a hospital in Puerto Rico. I respected and admired her so much, and originally went to college to study nursing because I was raised to believe that if you're on Earth, the rent you pay is how you help and serve others. And I knew how much nurses did for people at their most difficult times."

A year and a half into her nursing studies at the University of Central Florida, Ayala realized that she "and math and science were not good friends." It was not for lack of trying. She sat down with teaching assistants. She went to office hours. She did everything she could.

"And it was just like, you can't fit a square peg into a round hole," she says. At the time, the College Democrats were gearing up for the 2012 presidential election, and Ayala became fascinated by their efforts to engage young and Hispanic-Latino voters. She poured her heart into going door-to-door and calling potential voters, and fell in love with the work. And she decided to switch her major from nursing to political science and journalism.

"Going home in failure was not an option for me," she recalls. "I was supposed to be the first person in my immediate family to get a four-year degree and my parents sacrificed everything for me to do this. This nursing thing wasn't going to work. On the other hand, no one in my family had ever done politics or run for office. In Puerto Rico, you go vote and hope for the best, but you don't get involved. So when I told my mom what I switched my major to, I really had to calm her down. Because I think when you find what you're passionate about, you end up doing very well at it."

After the switch, Ayala's grades improved. And she began working on state campaigns, sometimes winning, sometimes not, but always learning from the experience. After graduation, she returned to Palm Beach County and at 25 became the youngest person and first Latina to serve on the local school board. There, she learned about how county politics worked and how she could best represent families living in the community in which she was raised.

"My mother was an early childhood educator for 15 years, and I grew up in a daycare and childcare center every afternoon and every summer camp and winter camp," she says. "I saw my mother's struggles and understood all the things that went into what works and what doesn't for kids in this system."

What Ayala was shocked to learn, just three years into her tenure, was how many homeless children were in the system. But when you consider who she was and where she came from and the people who shaped her into the woman she is today, it should come as no surprise what happened next. And that's where my piece, which appears in this month's Palm Beach Illustrated, begins. I hope you'll take a minute to read it, and that you'll come away from it inspired by this young woman's desire to improve life for others in her adopted hometown.

Thank you for being here. I hope you have a wonderful weekend ahead.

Best,

Paige

Writing prompt: Write about your week in 100 words or less. Then, write that same account in 500 or more words. After that, write about the experience of doing both and what you learned from it.

The fight is won or lost far away from witnesses - behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.

-- Muhammad Ali

Endnotes

You Can Make This Place Beautiful

I think we can all agree that the world is a certain way right now. Some people are brightening – and lightening – things up by committing acts of guerrilla gardening, whether it's by tossing seed bombs into vacant lots or planting flowers in pavement cracks. According to a recent article on Service 95, the movement is geared toward building community so we can survive these chaotic times. The article gives you tips on how to start doing this in your corner of the world, and shares links to a few eco-minded collectives as inspiration. Speaking of "you can make this place beautiful," the poet Maggie Smith, who popularized the phrase in her poem "Good Bones", launches a new podcast today about how to make life a little more beautiful with music, art, poetry, and nature, among other things. I mean, flowers and poetry: What's not to love? How are you making your world a little more beautiful right now? Hit reply and let me know.

Things I'm Enjoying

Watching Luis Arraez get off to a rollicking start with his new team, the Philadelphia Phillies. Perhaps he'll win a fourth batting title this year? Also: Looking through an advance reader copy of Eleven Days, a true account of Agatha Christie's 1926 disappearance. This story about a 25-year-old who bought his hometown newspaper. And Isoul Harris' fabulous story for Ebony about how Christian Dior's secret weapon was a Black woman from Texas. Her name? Dorothea Towles Church.