Anaya | A Chair-ity Success Story

Anaya referred herself to Chair-ity after hearing about us from another aged-out foster youth who received our services.

Anaya, now 20, emancipated from foster care in Texas at age 18 and moved to Ohio recently to go to nail tech school. She is currently working as a nail tech while finishing up school with hopes to open her own nail salon. She is also expecting her first child in March of this year.

Living in a new state with a new job and a new baby on the way all by herself could be the hardest time of Anaya’s life, but she doesn’t see it that way.

She was all smiles and happiness when we came by her apartment and delivered her a love seat, coffee table, end table, TV stand, dinette set, dresser, night stand, desk, and new crib. She had been living there for 4 months already before she heard of our services, and in that time she had managed to get herself a bed and a couch, but had nothing more in the form of furniture. She said she found the couch on Facebook Marketplace and got it for a bargain, talking the seller into delivering it to her due to her pregnancy.

She had great fun picking out furniture to match it with our Chair-ity design volunteer, who she talked about like they were old friends. Anaya felt like an old friend even after just meeting her, with her sweet attitude and kind eyes. She said she had 2 sisters who still lived in Texas, from the other side of her family that was not affected by foster care, and although they were far away they kept in touch often.

She seemed so ready to take on the challenges set before her, and when we left her newly furnished apartment there was a sense of peace emanating from it. Anaya is a true reflection of a phrase we hear all too often from the aged-out foster youth we work with - “Home is where you make it.”