Shirley Bolden has given us permission to share her story. Below, we reprint her letter to Dr. Gloria Nixon-John.

Gloria,

You saved my life. I mean that literally and figuratively.
I was in the InsideOut Literary Arts Coffey Middle School cohort in 2001-2002. That year, I was a new student at Coffey and had just entered the foster care system. I wasn't just some seventh grader in the library, sitting around a desk, waiting to be told how to write a poem; I was a kid waiting for salvation. I was headed for the same trajectory that many of the other individuals who were funneled through the foster care system were. Many women end up on welfare, raising children while they are still children, because they never really had any parents. Many of us end up in jails. Many of us grow up emotionally scarred and never really move past our childhoods.
I went to Michigan State University and earned a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. I learned to write in nearly every way possible. I have now written everything from short stories, poems, articles, blogs, editorials, commentaries and opinion articles. Gloria, if you had not introduced me to words and the power of storytelling, those things would not have been possible. Today, I live my life by the personal story. I believe it is every individual's tool for healing, self-awareness and esteem. While foster care was no picnic, I was able to navigate my way through it with a notebook and pen.
In a true sense of irony, one day I was assigned to interview Terry Blackhawk for B.L.A.C. Detroit, a magazine I was interning for. When she started talking about the program, I realized there was something familiar. Sure enough, she found the book, Changing Faces from Coffey School that InsideOut had published for us. In that moment triumph made sense. I remembered when I was introduced to words and storytelling. I remember essentially when I became me.
In an even greater ironic twist, I am now in Teach For America, a program that trains recent college graduates as teachers in ailing school districts to assist in education reform. I will be teaching 7th grade writing. You made that possible for me. Many of the kids in my classroom are foster children like I was. So, let me make a correction, you saved plenty of lives.
This is not just a thank you. It is my acknowledgement of the fact that you paid a debt in my childhood that hoisted me into adulthood. I would still be crying because my parents suffered from drug addiction. I would still suffer through sleepless nights because of sexual abuse. I would still lament for the day I was removed from my Grandmother's home for my second round of foster care. I don't do those things. I write about them. I am headed into a classroom where I will help kids like me write their stories. Thank you -- from me and all of them.

Sincerely,
Shirley Bolden