Krystol Housego walks the halls of Emily Griffith Opportunity School everyday with backpack in tow hustling from one class to the next in pursuit of her dream job. Like the approximately 9,000 students who trace her footsteps at Opportunity School annually, she plans everyday for the life she wants for herself. As she hands in each assignment for her legal office skills program, Krystol inches one step closer to getting back her dream once vivid, now deferred.

“I dream of showing my heart to the world to remind them of theirs,” Krystol imagines. “I dream of being an artist who makes a difference, one whose art leaves footprints on people’s lives.”

As far back as she can remember, Krystol has been dropping jaws with her art and poetry. In kindergarten she won the coloring contest at her school, in second grade her art was published as part of an advertising contest at the local pizza parlor, and in high school, her drawing graced the cover of the homecoming program. Krystol sold her first piece of art at the age of 17 when she tried her hand at pottery. Participating in a local food drive, professionals and amateurs crafted bowls to serve soup in on Thanksgiving. The professional bowls were auctioned off to raise money for the food bank; the amateur bowls were given to the hungry. Krystol’s bowl was so good they auctioned it with the professionals and it made $55 for the food bank.

“That was an amazing day,” Krystol remembers. “I dreamed that everyday in my future would be like that day when I saw my creation take life and make an impression that lasted.”

The beauty and grace Krystol perceived and expressed in her art was in stark contrast to the realities of the times. Krystol saw her mother suffer and eventually leave an abusive marriage, then struggle to pay the bills. She moved from school to school from California, to Indiana to Colorado depending on where her mother could find work. Each new home brought unique challenges for the young artist. Still, during those wandering and reckless times, moving with her mother, Krystol held tightly to her dream of creating grace and beauty in every situation. Two weeks before high school graduation, Krystol’s vision for the future changed from making great art to the reality of being a single, teen mother. Art now seemed out of the question for a young single mother with too much to lose and a lot to take care of.

“I thought I lost hold of my dreams forever when my life took a turn I didn’t expect,” Krystol laments. “But Emily (Griffith Opportunity School) was there, shining a light on opportunity.”

With transferring credits, Emily Griffith Opportunity School became a launch pad to re-ignite Krystol’s dreams. Now, Krystol is learning the specific skills needed to be a legal secretary. Her classes teach her legal terminology, civil procedure, litigation, court document compiling, legal standards of documents, and more. Her attention to detail and inquisitive mind make her the perfect candidate to be a legal secretary according to her teachers. She learns quickly and progresses through her classes rapidly, but not without great effort.

“Emily Griffith met me where I was financially and mentally,” Krystol explains. “It’s difficult raising a baby on your own with the pressures of money, time, childcare, and then on top of that the basic requirements to simply get enrolled into school. Emily Griffith has flexible schedules and understanding attitudes from the teachers.”

Krystol says the opportunity to make good money and pay less for school than at a four year college fit both her goals to create a stable life for her son and to continue her progress towards creating art. In a year, she will have her certificate and be able to get out into the workforce with credibility and confidence. She wants to go to work in a legal office and hopes to work her way up to be a paralegal one day. This, she says, will provide the stability for her son that she never had growing up.

“I am determined to prevail over my circumstances so that there may be chance that my son will also choose to prevail over his own circumstances someday and remember to never forget about his passions, his dreams,” Krystol asserts.

“I realigned my focus, but did not forget about my dream of one day impacting the world with my art. I have big dreams and nothing can stop them from coming true.”