The Storyboard Project, founded by Mira Zimet in 2014, is a short documentary web series created to lift up stories of youth who have experienced foster care. The project is based in Los Angeles, but this past year, Zimet, along with her husband, purchased an Airstream trailer, hitched it to a truck and went on the road — with Zimet meeting and interviewing youth along the way.
The Imprint will be featuring these videos throughout the month of December. Today, we feature the story of Emmerald from Sacramento, California.
“I never thought I would graduate high school, going to college, ‘Excuse me?” I thought that was just, like, TV. I never would have imagined. It was literally community that cared. It was a pastor, it was my attorney for seven years, one of my spiritual sisters, my adopted mom. That community becomes your family.” – Emmerald, California
As Emmerald describes, sometimes it is the family you find who fill in those empty spaces of love and nurturing that biological families can’t always meet. For her, when a mentor urged her to talk to her pastor, it ended up changing her foster care trajectory from a destructive placement to a home where she was eventually adopted. Emmerald credits her community — and her faith — with finding the “puzzle pieces” to put her life on a solid path.
“On the Road” is sponsored by Journey to Success.
Stay tuned for more great profiles of youth from Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon and Tennessee.
