Today we’d like to introduce you to Trisha Goolsby.
Trisha, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
My parents met in High school but are from two very different worlds. My mom was born in California, moved to Virginia when she was 7. My dad was born in Virginia on my Great Grandparent’s farmland, which is right next door to where I grew up. So, from a very young age, I had it in my mind that I was half Virginian and half Californian.
As the first born of two, I was what some may call “assertive.” It could have just been good old First Child Syndrome, but in my mind (and heart), it was an inclination to teach and help others. Education was my goal from a young age. There is one picture of myself when I was younger reading to my stuffed animals and my brother. Going into the Education field was an uphill battle. As a child, I remember struggling with reading and not qualifying for extra support. My mom did her best in supporting me at home, but it was the teachers that tutored me after school and allowed me in the Pullout reading groups that made a huge impression during my Early Childhood.
Even though I struggled, I was always involved in extracurricular activities and always looking to have experience in leadership roles. I am a Majority Member and Past Honored Queen of Bethel #52, Herndon, Virginia of Job’s Daughters International. An organization for girls ages 10-20 with a mission “to create confident young women through leadership and community service experiences.” An Honored Queen is equivalent to a Presidential position that requires being elected into each position in line every 6 months for 2 years. It provided me with the skills I needed to continue onto other leadership roles. I earned my role as Honored Queen my freshman year in high school. I look back and still can’t believe the responsibilities I juggled.
After High School, I attended Radford University in Radford, Virginia. While there, I earned my master’s in education and my daul teaching license in Early Childhood (PreK – 3rd Grade) and Early Childhood Special Education (Birth – 5 years old.) Go me!!!! It was not an easy journey!
I spent 4 years teaching in Northern Virginia and DC area when an opportunity to move to San Diego came while my God sister’s husband was stationed here! The stars aligned! The timing couldn’t have been more perfect. I had just finished the end of the school year when I decided, “why not?” So, I left my job, moved home for 2 weeks, downsized my belongings to what could fit in my Ford Focus then drove across the country with my dad out here!
So, without a plan, little money, and support from friends and family, I started over!
I went back to teaching in the home environment for the first year as a Family Nanny. I prefer to call it now an “At-home Educator.” The following year, I reconnected with a wonderful Director at UCUC Preschool and decided to stop Nannying to work for the part time program. When the Director left, I followed shortly after due to “at work bullying” that I wouldn’t stand for. And yes, bullying happens within the workforce all the time. The home environment continued to call my name and I was a Home Educator and Nanny for a single Mom at the beginning of the Pandemic. By May, circumstances had drastically changed, as had for so many, and I left to begin the process of working towards being my own boss.
Side note, if you ask anyone that will say I work too much. But my Grandma Buckley taught me to NEVER stop and keep going. And with that mentality I’ve always got side jobs going on. From babysitting for families in military housing, pet sitting, and selling my soul to the devil. Hahah, JK.
By the end of the summer, I was flat broke and unemployed for the first time due to COVID. So, I busted ass and started Stellar At-Home Educational Consultants. Stellar At-Home Educational Consultants mission is to provide individualized educational support to families in the home setting. My parents are not business owners, so the majority of the help I’ve received has been through networking with people who know business to find the answers. Between networking and good old word of mouth, I had clients, and I was officially a Sole proprietor. But then December’s stay at home orders came and I dutifully followed suit. Since my business is based on in-person and outdoor influenced interactions, zoom was not an option.
As I was sitting there being bored in my small North Park apartment being bored, I caught myself staring at the huge pile of cans from my roommate and it sparked an idea. Why not see if I can do a fundraiser to raise money for free children’s books. So, I put together a flyer using Canva Pro, and I asked my Facebook Buy Nothing Group and the Lincoln Military Housing families in NTC to donate their cans and called its “Cans4Books.” I used my stuffed animal Rupert (monkey who I would use teaching to help students be engaged in learning). My goal was to reach 10,000 cans! Silly idea at first but I was getting unemployment and what else could I do in the middle of a Pandemic? So, every day, I asked my neighbors and friends on social media to donate their CRV recyclables. Every day, I drove around collecting and recycling at the one center that was open, San Diego CRV Center on 32nd street. That was a fun time. Sometimes racing against the clock to make it to the recycling center before it closes. I have a Ford Focus and would have to take multiple trips at times, storing the bags of recyclables in my apartment shared garage. I was absolutely floored by how many of the community members that have donated to the initiative. I actually hand counted each of the recyclables while I sorted them out before the recycling center.
I was shocked, I collected 823 plastic, 251 glass, and… 3,599 cans!!! Like what? Everyone showed up for this! The best part is that I thrift for the books at the local thrift and bookstores, so with that money raised I was able to get almost 300 books! Throughout this process, I had regular pickup locations that I gave them bins for easily weekly pickups. And all the way this was happening, my friend in Florida who I shared the idea with did it with her neighborhood. They raised $78 and got a ton of books into their neighborhood!
It is something so simplistic. Why can’t we continue to do this as a community? I continued to post each pickup and tag local Instagram accounts to reshare my story. From that I got an interview with Kaci McKinnon on KUSI News to share about my initiative. My first big TV experience! It was exciting but made me anxious as I have been doing this by myself as I am still new to San Diego and COVID. But I think I nailed it in the live 2 interviews! I started to receive tons of feedback of large donations of recyclables all across San Diego County! Since I don’t have a large vehicle, I have been reliant on community friends and renting box trucks from Home Depot. I’ve gone all the way to North County for large donations and support from viewers! From there, all these other elements I have been working to bring together the community as a collective through Cans4Books.
It hasn’t just only been the adults that have contributed, but I practice what I preach. Which means, I get the children I work with involved in the initiative as well. I got T-shirts made through a reference to a local business, Mission Beach Silkscreen as a fundraiser and way to get the children involved. It has been designed with Rupert and made into children’s shirts and adult shirts. Rupert’s library hosts Cans4Books. He has his buddy RJ (Rupert Junior) that has been a huge support tool for many children in the community. They are kind of celebrities! Rupert, RJ and I will take the children on walks around the neighborhood cleaning up mother earth. And they have been instrumental on collection day in getting the multiple donations!
Before I go into a passionate tangent about everything, I do with Cans4Books and the kids, here is a brief list of all the different things I have tried to implement:
– Monthly Free Book events at local playgrounds, books are wrapped to symbolize new year, new book
– Quarterly Beach Clean-ups with local community leaders and businesses
– Collaborating with the company Shore Buddies
– Library bins in neighborhood playgrounds
– San Marcos hosted a book drive in March, collecting about 400 books to the cause!
– Connected with other non-profit leaders to help bring other community programs together
– Became a street steward, we must model what we preach!
– Designed and build the 1st library with local carpenter Daniel Potter
– Story Time at the playgrounds
And I’m sure there are some other little things that have been involved that I have missed. I have been operating things on my own and despite being tired, I just keep on, keepin on.
Life really has tested the boundaries of my resilience. Especially throughout my career. I’ve worked in many educational settings: home environment, franchise preschools, preschool of small business owners, museum enrichment centers, and church settings. Each experience I have learned more about my own identity, voice, and well-being as an Early Childhood Educator and Special Educator. As an educator, it is not without failure that we are able to achieve wondrous things.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Life has really tested my level of resilience! In many chapters of my life: career, family, and mental health. Less often than not, I downplay the trauma that occurred throughout my childhood and young adult life. Those experiences gave me perspectives that have shaped who I am today and ones that most do not know about me. As an Early Childhood Educator and Special Educator, I’ve analyzed my childhood over and over, so I’ll try to stick to the cliff notes. 🙂
I started with a traumatic birth. My mom unknowingly had cervical strep which caused her to go into labor 6 weeks premature. On the way out, I contracted strep and had to be in the NICU for a week before my parents could hold me. Like, woah! Knowing what I know now about child development, it makes sense why I had the struggles I had.
As a child, most would call me bossy, but I call it figuring out my destiny! Teaching others. The path to being a teacher was a struggle. I had huge difficulties with reading and paying attention. I had to put a lot of effort into getting my educational foundation set. On top of that, what my parents would call a perfectionism, I now recognize as Anxiety with OCD tendencies mixed with ADD. So, I really dove into my schoolwork. Although my support from my teachers makes my memories wonderful, the bad ones are not so hot. I had no emotional self-regulation with my frustrations. I would lash out when I was overwhelmed and overstimulated! Back then my mom did the best she could, and my dad was a mechanic who worked all the time. On top of that, the “friends” I had would bully me at times too. Having glasses since I was 2 years old didn’t help!
Middle school was another chapter. It brought about a realization of Racism in my family. It was an awakening to unteach myself. It had to happen. I felt resentment toward my family’s beliefs and without their knowing, I was able to come to an understanding of who I was, while also realizing I can only change myself, not others. It made a huge impact on me when I was forbidden to date a black boy. I remember saying “But why, I don’t understand. We are all human beings; who cares what color our skin is!” That would just infuriate my dad more. It was pure ignorance. And he would lash out. I was not about that life so at that point, I said to myself I just won’t tell them now. Then when I am older, I can make my own decisions. My parents are known for short tempers.
During that same time, I developed depression and anxiety.
My mental well-being has always been the root to all my life’s successes and failures.
My parents did the best they could with what they had. Unfortunately, they didn’t realize the effects it was going to have on me in the future. The hard work together as a family was never ingrained in our family values. That is not me.
In high school, I battled severe depression, being bullied, sexual harassed by my male peers, anxiety, resentment towards my family values, processing family deaths, failing at 2 suicide attempts (without anyone finding out), and drug/alcohol abuse. Despite these hurdles, I graduated with honors and acceptance into multiple universities!
I accepted enrollment at Radford University being a first-generation college student on my dad’s side and first master’s degree recipient on my mom’s side. But college, yikes! This chapter involves strengthening my resilience to life’s adversities. Fall freshman year, my grandma passed away. Emotionally I could not process. This was a tough one to handle mentally. The previous year she was on life support and came back! So, it didn’t seem real to me. I did not cope in a healthy way. I almost got kicked out of college but was able to take summer classes to raise my GPA. Along the way, I met someone and dated them most of the summer. Then at the beginning of the Fall semester, he was murdered. Local college students pushed him off a 3-story stairwell, then just walked away acting like nothing happened! At that point, I had asked my mom to help me find a therapist. That was a difficult conversation as it is a sign of weakness to have to see a therapist. That southern upbringing!
Had I not been in therapy, I would have not been able to recognize being in an emotional abusive relationship at the end of my college career. For 2 ½ years, I balanced an abusive relationship with full-time student teaching, working part-time, and grad classes. Which has led me to help others hold those accountable for their abusive actions.
Since my career started, I have overcome several hurdles. First school closing down in the middle of the year, standing up against an administration and how they handled transparency about child abuse in their facilities, being told “maybe teaching isn’t a career for you,” being bullied by my coworkers and Director, working two jobs: 60 clocked hours a week to pay my bills, and leaving hostile work environments.
Last year with COVID was quite a year of new possibilities!
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I am a new small business female owner. In Fall of 2020, I began Stellar At-Home Educational Consultants with a vision to provide child developmental education and resources into the home environment. My specialty is providing one-on-one intervention for families having difficulties with social emotional behaviors. I provide a safe space and support for families’ developmental growth as a harmonious unit. My background in Early Childhood and Early Childhood Special Education is instrumental in providing the patience and knowledge for families to trust me in supporting their learning environment in the home. I take a holistic approach to a child’s behavior by looking at the environmental stimulant, children being capable of doing everything independently on some level. Differentiating levels of support based on the capabilities of the child and family members.
I’ve noticed a trend that families with three children and Military families make up most of my clientele. And I am here for them in the way that they need to be supported. I am not here to judge but help bring optimism, kindness, and patience into your space. By doing that, I can help teach and guide the families to the best version they can be!
As a babysitter, I have specialized in families of three, as well as overnight requests. My goal in life is to be the modern-day, Mary Poppins. Bringing a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down. In my case, help make the learning not feel like learning. 🙂 It brings me joy to see others have joy in seeing what they are capable of accomplishing. And I am here to be that support so they can fail as they continue to try to achieve those milestones!
What’s next?
As Cans4Books expands with the help of all the community members. I want to shift my focus on its growth. And hopefully, get a Cans4Books vehicle for these recycling pickups so Stella, my Ford Focus, can stay clean rather than smelling and being filled with recyclables! Lol
I’m currently figuring out steps to obtain a Non-profit status through a fiscal sponsorship which will aid with the “Cans4Books Community Initiative” becoming its own entity.
The long-term goal is to create a family-friendly recycling and educational resource center. Bringing together the community as a collective through local members, jobs, and local businesses. Shaping it to fit each individual community.
These centers can be spread across the country. It’s something so simple; why not reallocate the government funding for FREE educational resources for the community. It will not matter if you have children. You can recycle to support your community members and future leaders. You can recycle then pick out a free educational resource. Or just come pick out a free educational resource.
The short-term goal is to design and build playground bench libraries with the help of our local community members! Providing an invitation to read and access to free children’s books for those who may not access in their own neighborhood!
In the meantime, I have Cans4Books involved in many community elements.
– On a weekly, sometimes daily basis, my volunteer Kyle Stern and I are handling the recyclable donations. Currently, I have regular pick-ups in North Park, South Park, Lincoln Military Housing NTC, Point Loma, and Pacific Beach to raise money towards the cost of these libraries.
– Quarterly Beach Clean-ups with Breanna Beaver & Vishna Life, LLC
– Cans4Books is a Street Steward: adopted our street to keep clean)
– Collaborating with Shore Buddies in bringing awareness about marine life and plastic in the ocean with their book: “Shore Buddies and plastic in the ocean.”
– Bringing the neighborhood children together to do street clean-ups in their neighborhood and recycle
– Monthly Free Book Events at playgrounds around San Diego
Pricing:
- Home Education Consultation: $75/hr
- Home Educator Sessions: $35/hr
- Babysitting: $20 for up to 3 children, $25 for children under 1 years old, $30 for 3 or more children
- Cans4Books Adult Shirts (while supplies last) $10 – All Proceeds goes towards Cans4Books Community Initiative & playground libraries
- Cans4Books Youth Shirts (while supplies last) $5 – – All Proceeds goes towards Cans4Books Community Initiative & playground libraries
Contact Info:
- Website: cans4books.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/cans4books
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/773287146607560/
- Other: linqapp.com/cans4books
Image Credits
Amanda Ferrante
