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Transcript
My first name is Lashawn. I was born in the city of Pittsburgh, Allegheny General Hospital, and my connection to The Hill District…. I would just say my roots kind of run deep from childhood. I’m not from the Hill District, but I spent a lot of time over on the Hill District. A lot of our childhood on the Hill District was walking, like, we walked from everywhere. Wong’s was a part of our childhood. You know, the candy we always got our cookies and strawberry and lemon and penny candy back then, just everything about it. The culture, the people and it was black. So that was my favorite part. I came up completely different than you’ll probably see me now and how I look. You know, I was raised by a single mother, actually lived in, like, a shelter when I was a kid. My childhood was lit, but I was also responsible very early, like I grew up fast. So I’ve been working since I was 13 years old. As far as struggle, it was just always, you know, poverty. So like my first job, I was bussing tables at Kings. That was when I was 13. So by the time I was 16, I was working at McDonald’s. That’s where I bought my first car. That was my junior year going into something like that. I was like 16. And then from there I graduated high school. And I became a security guard. So I was a security guard over at University of Pittsburgh while I was in college. So I went to Point Park University downtown for criminal justice and science. And once I got done with school, I became a residential counselor for at risk girls is what they called them at the time. So I did that for 3 1/2 years. While doing that work, I ended up starting my own company. I started a whole company that provided strength based services, self esteem, social, and emotional intelligence. That was back in 2015. So I’ve been in business for myself since 2015. A strong woman is someone who is resilient, someone who’s not afraid to be vulnerable, someone who is intelligent, someone who knows who she is, someone who walks with confidence and someone who is just always willing to be the light in dark spaces. Whew, the Hill District changed. I will say, it’s gonna rise again, but back then, I just felt like it was all about like family culture, that’s still that village, you had that. Everybody was family, even if you wasn’t family compared to now. Like, I just feel like everything is separated, even though we’re still in the same spaces. But nothing is like how it used to be as far as like that village and everybody just being responsible for each other. So I think that’s the biggest difference. And then, you know, we got all these big building, fancy houses come in and it doesn’t really look the same. The Hill has always been very inspiring, empowering, and motivational when it comes to the culture and the richness of colored people. So for me, I’m coming over here even just as a kid and seeing, you know, just the artwork and all that. Going up Centre Ave. was always like you know, “Wow.” Like, you know, it always gave you some sense of identity, right? Of who we are and where we come from. So I feel like the Hill was always rich in culture. I grew up dancing too, so the Hill District played a major part in that. Like they hosted a lot of our dance competitions. I was a majorette, and I also was on like a hip hop dance team. So we competed like all throughout the city, everywhere. We opened up for like different artists back then who was popular, Jaimie, Jaquan, all of them. I remember my 17th birthday party at the Centre Ave. Hall that used to sit up there, like, I threw the dopest party, I’m telling y’all, it was lit, you know, just different stuff like that, like the Schenley hair shows, the football games, just everything about it, like the Hill was a great place to grow up. In business, there’s always going to be some type of challenge, right? Because it’s always- It’s like a roller coaster. More social, you say you have your good days, you have your bad ones. Because of the type of business I’m in, I kind of have more good days than I do bad days, but when they do take place, some of them can take me out because I’m dealing with people and I’m constantly serving. My cup is always getting poured from, and not sometimes poured into, so, you know, I do hit those stages where you know, I’m just burned out exhausted. I just came off one of those, you know, so when you just gotta rest and sometimes step back, kind of readjust revision, and go back in. You know, so there’s many ways that I learned how to express myself, and then sometimes, you know, just doing the total opposite. I travel a lot. So I’ve been a lot of places. You know, that’s my thing. So if I feel like, you know, I’m being smothering or it’s too much, I go working on myself, treating myself, loving on myself. That always helps. Go on a journey of understanding who you are, know that you have enough to make mistakes and take some time to figure out what you want to do and where you want to go. Don’t be so quick to grow up, and don’t be so quick to decide because there’s time.