The last few years have been hard for incoming Coral Gables High senior Taralee Britton. Her mother lost her job a couple of years ago and they lost their home.
“It came out of nowhere. She went to work and she got laid off,”
Britton said. “We were in another house that we had bought; they foreclosed it and then we were kicked out of the other house and it got harder and harder.” Britton said they had a difficult time finding a place to live.
“We had nowhere to go for a while. I lived in a duplex,” she said.
They even stayed in a home owned by one of her mom’s friends. Her living situation settled down when her uncle bought them a house. When her mother gets settled financially, they will pay him back.
Despite almost being homeless, Britton managed to keep focused on her academics. She ended her junior year with all A’s and B’s. She said her grades her sophomore year were not as stellar as she had hoped, so she is proud she was able to get them back up.
Britton is in culinary section of the Design Education and Hospitality Academy. Outside the academy she takes honors and gifted classes.
Next year she will be working and going to school. There is a program that allows students to go to school in the morning and leave early in order to go to work.
After graduation, she is thinking of going to culinary school so she can earn a living while attending college to become a psychologist.
“Since the things I’ve gone through, I want to help others,” she said. “I want to help them mentally and give them advice.”
She plans to take the ACT and SAT exams this month and has been studying hard in order to get good scores so she can apply to colleges such as Florida International University, University of Central Florida and Johnson and Wales for culinary arts.
— Linda Rodriguez Bernfeld
