class of 2009 > gabriela antolin

Gabriela Antolin says the Florence Crittenton School "has helped me so much in so many ways. The most important was that when I found this school, I realized I was going to finish high school."

Gabriela is the mother of Brianna Nicole Omedas, 8 months, who she calls "the most beautiful and wonderful thing to walk this earth, for me. She is my everything."

Baby Brianna spent most of the 2008-2009 school year in Parent Pathways' Early Learning Center while her mother attended classes.

"The Early Learning Center is the best place ever," she says, "because it's right here at school and I could check up on my baby anytime. Without it, I don't know where I would have taken my baby so I could come to school."

Becoming a teen mother, says Gabriela, "has taught me how to look at the future in a different way, in a way of achieving my goals, being the best mother I can be and thinking about my baby and no one else."

She plans to become a legal secretary and then work her way to getting money for college. "Also, I plan to go live on my own with my baby and boyfriend, and try to be a happy family," she says.