The Live Your Dream Awards empowered Rebecca to graduate with her bachelor’s degree in social work. She now uses her degree to assist homeless families and survivors of domestic violence.

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Rebecca Shuflin of Humboldt County, California, describes herself as a survivor. Working to rebuild her life from scratch, the single mother of six is driven by her passion to help homeless families and survivors of domestic violence, an area she is all too familiar with on a personal level.

When Rebecca courageously left her abusive husband, she had been a stay-at-home mom for more than 10 years. She and her children left and sought refuge in the rural Humboldt County community. They spent months living and recovering at Humboldt Domestic Violence Services, and later at Safe Haven, a transitional home for women and their families.

A New Start

While working to start over, Rebecca spent a lot of time in court with her now ex-husband sorting out matters including child custody, a restraining order, and violation of restraining orders. But instead of letting this daunting process wear her down, she used the experience to fuel her passion to help others in similar situations.

Rebecca enrolled at the College of Redwoods, where she slowly worked her way through general education classes. She then transferred to Humboldt State University, graduating in May 2014 with a bachelor’s in social work. While caring for her six children completely on her own, she managed to finish out her last semester with an impressive 4.0 GPA. In addition, she holds a full time job at the Arcata House Partnership, a transitional housing program, where she is a Case Manager working with homeless families and additionally helps out with legal advocacy. Rebecca is also a staff member for the Social Work department at HSU working as an assistant for the distributed learning program.

Helping others with her experience

“I have a strong understanding and experience with the legal system in regard to domestic violence and child custody. I spent five long years filling out, filing, and serving court forms for my own hearings with the help of an amazing attorney in San Diego who assisted me (for free!) for the full five years. The court process is overwhelming and difficult to understand,” said Rebecca. “One way abusers get back at partners who have left them is by retaliating in court. This is the position I found myself in, just as my [Arcata House] clients are now dealing with. These clients are already traumatized by their current circumstances. This is where I come in with my personal experience.”

Inspired by Rebecca, SI/Eureka, California, selected her as its club-level Live Your Dream Award recipient. She went on to receive $5,000 as the Soroptimist Founder Region recipient, and was ultimately chosen as one of SIA’s three finalists, for which she received an additional $10,000. In total, Soroptimist awarded Rebecca more than $15,000, which she is using to obtain her paralegal certification through the university’s extended learning program and also towards her Master’s degree in Social Work.

With Determination and Courage

Her college career has not been an easy journey. During her spring semester, Shacambria became both pregnant and homeless. With her daughter, Shacambria lived in a homeless shelter for 9 months, and gave birth to her second daughter while there. Despite this hurdle, she successfully completed the semester.

The Director of Financial Aid at her college writes, “… Despite every setback that she faced, she never broke. She never said ‘why me’ or ‘when will this finally end?’ Instead, she just had this indescribable resolve to simply continue on for herself and her children, and that is exactly what she did.”

Shacambria was able to move out of the shelter with the help of the organization, Your Way Home.

The Live Your Dream Award helped Shacambria pay her rent for one year while she was in school, so she could worry less about becoming homeless again.

While she was able to overcome homelessness for a year, she is still living in poverty. She realizes that finishing her education is the first step for her to escape poverty, and the Live Your Dream Awards will help her accomplish her goals.

Shacambria plans to complete her associate’s degree in nursing this December, and will enter right into a bachelor of science in nursing program. She hopes to graduate in August. Her long-term goal is to complete a master’s program to become a nurse practitioner, a domestic violence advocate, and to eventually start an organization to assist women who are balancing school and being a parent.

Shacambria has already used her life experience to help another single mother. She offered guidance and support to another student and mom facing homelessness. The support was desperately needed and much appreciated by the other student.

The abuse cycle will end with Shacambria.

I left with just a few backpacks and my beautiful children. After enduring heartache and stress with the legal system, I secured a restraining order and sole custody of my children. I wasn’t able to get our belongings back or any child support, but at least we had each other.

Rebecca, Live Your Dream Awards Recipient

It’s been a long road and it feels like every step of the way was worth it, to get here – with a job, a home, and healthy children.

Rebecca, Live Your Dream Awards Recipient

Helping others with her experience

“I have a strong understanding and experience with the legal system in regard to domestic violence and child custody. I spent five long years filling out, filing, and serving court forms for my own hearings with the help of an amazing attorney in San Diego who assisted me (for free!) for the full five years. The court process is overwhelming and difficult to understand,” said Rebecca. “One way abusers get back at partners who have left them is by retaliating in court. This is the position I found myself in, just as my [Arcata House] clients are now dealing with. These clients are already traumatized by their current circumstances. This is where I come in with my personal experience.”

Inspired by Rebecca, SI/Eureka, California, selected her as its club-level Live Your Dream Award recipient. She went on to receive $5,000 as the Soroptimist Founder Region recipient, and was ultimately chosen as one of SIA’s three finalists, for which she received an additional $10,000. In total, Soroptimist awarded Rebecca more than $15,000, which she is using to obtain her paralegal certification through the university’s extended learning program and also towards her Master’s degree in Social Work.