Single Mom Seeking Business Grant To Open Bakery

by Wendy Averett
(Denham Springs, LA, USA)

I'm a 33-year-old single mother of two children. My daughter Kaleigh is thirteen and my son Brayden is nine. I have been looking for employment for several months with no prospects. With the training and skills I have in administrative, office management, and marketing you wouldn't think it would be this hard.

I make and decorate cakes from home. This is how we are getting by for now. It is hard because without a shop I can't do the volume of business I need to in order to really be able to provide for my children.

Kaleigh has dyslexia and central auditory processing disorder. I spend a lot of time at school meeting with teachers, councilors, and child advisory people for my daughter.

When she was four years old she and her father came up on her grandfather's fatal head on collision with another vehicle. Kaleigh and her father were standing approximately 10 feet from her grandfather's vehicle when the cut him out.

They wouldn't tell them if he was alive until they got him out and checked his ID. Kaleigh started school a few months later. Kaleigh's kindergarten teacher called me every day. She got in to trouble every single day all through kindergarten and first grade.

After several doctor visits and different medications for ADD, nothing was working. I punished her; I tried everything. Nothing would work. The doctor finally suggested that I take her to a child therapist.

The therapist learned she did not have ADD, but that in fact she had dyslexia, and she was very angry and confused about her learning disability and how to deal with the death of her grandfather the way she had to.

I presented the school with her records. Kaleigh repeated first grade and made good grades. After that year the school misplaced her records. I have been fighting them since.

At the end of fifth grade the principal at her school even suggested having Kaleigh tested again. My insurance doesn't pay for this therefore I had to pay $1500 for the test.

Dr. Alicia Pelligrin diagnosed Kaleigh yet again with Dyslexia and Central Auditory Processing Disorder (CAPD). On August 27, 2008 I delivered the doctor's diagnosis and records to the school.

The school councilor told me that I had basically wasted my money, because the school board will do their own testing and they do not go by the doctor's test because it is not the test the school board uses.

The school's councilor even told me several times that there are "special" schools for kids with dyslexia. I can't afford to send my daughter to a special school. I fought this all year long. It took the school until the end of the third nine weeks of school to finish testing her, and until the middle of the fourth nine weeks to decide to put her in speech classes.

Then their final diagnosis was that she has a touch of dyslexia, but not bad enough to do anything about and that she does have CAPD. They performed four hearing test on her because they did not want to accept that she had CAPD. She was even accused of lying during the test and trying to fail it.

The doctor diagnosed Kaleigh with a severe case of dyslexia and had her on a second grade reading level. But yet the school board didn't have a doctor performing testing, just a “qualified individual” and they diagnosed her with mild dyslexia and on a fifth grade reading level.

Kaleigh tried very hard in school and still was making at least two Fs on each report card, sometimes more. I brought this to the school's attention several times and was assured that it would be ok.

I told them countless times that she was getting discouraged with school, and that a child that always said she wanted to be a veterinarian, stopped saying that because she was starting to hate school.

Kaleigh failed the sixth grade. I talked to the principal and the assistant principal when I found out and I told them the whole story, and told them I would not let this die and that I would fight for my daughter as much and as hard as I need to.

I also showed them the notebook I had kept of every date time and who I spoke with throughout the year, and in there I had documented the times I had called to talk to them and I was told by them that I had to speak with the councilor that she is the one that handles this.

Upon seeing this they decided to let my daughter take a placement test in Math and Reading the next morning. If she passed both she could move on the seventh grade. She passed the math part barely but failed the reading part. Of course she did because she is on a second grade reading level.

I decided to send my daughter to summer school so that she wouldn't be another year behind. This was the best decision I could have made. The summer school she had to attend is a small Christian School.

I explained Kaleigh's learning disorders and they placed her with a teacher that has a son that went through the same ordeal as my daughter and he quit school. She worked with my daughter and really encouraged her.

My daughter is now in the seventh grade, and for the first time ever she brought home a progress report with all As and one B. The school still will not give her the help she needs but I have continued to have her tutored by her summer school teacher. And it really seems to be helping.

I have spent countless hours on the phone or in person to different people trying to help my daughter. I was even told that because I was such an attentive mother and helped my daughter learn as much as I could that I actually hurt her in the long run.

If I would have just let her get behind they would have noticed her problems and she wouldn't have fallen through the cracks as she did because the squeaky wheel also gets the oil. This was a major slap in the face for me feeling like I have actually harmed my daughter rather than helping her.

This has really put a major bind on me working because I have had to leave so many times to deal with something going on at school or to meet with someone about helping my daughter. It's really scary because there are times that you feel like there is no one to turn to. As an adult with ADHD I understand how hard it is to learn in school, but I will not allow my daughter to give up.

I started decorating cakes at home several years ago. Over the past couple of years I have started taking orders and making cakes from home. I have built a pretty good clientele. Everyone that has either saw or tasted my cakes has said I really need to open a bakery.

This is something I love doing and teaching my children. They have also been on me to try to open a bakery. On several occasions I have actually had everything ready to decorate and parents bring their birthday boy/girl over to help me decorate their cake. Kids love it!

I would like to open a full service bakery. One of the things I want to do is allow parents to book times for their children to actually come in and help decorate their birthday cakes. The town I live in is growing quickly; we do not have a bakery here. I feel like this is something I could really make work and I would be able to better provide for my children. I have put forth a lot of time and effort into this and I believe that this could be something great for us.