BURIN, N.L. — For the first three years of Mary Francis’s daughter’s life, the two were attached at the hip.
Then one day last September that all changed.
Francis had made a decision to go back to school and found herself at College of the North Atlantic’s (CNA) campus in Burin alone, her toddler nowhere in sight.
She was scared, a feeling that persisted for several days.
“For a whole week, I was like, I’m not coming back, I’m not coming back,” the 36-year-old single mother told SaltWire Network on Thursday, Feb. 20.
Each day, she did, however, and gradually it got better.
“I think it was getting my child into a routine. Being a single parent, it was like, how was everything going to kinda fit to where it needed to be,” the Marystown resident explained.
“She needed to be at daycare, I needed to be at school, and things that just kind of happened with normal life, I guess, but after that, it was like, ‘Okay, we got this.’”
Floating around
Francis graduated high school with honours in Carbonear, where she lived for a time when she was younger.
She wasn't interested in pursuing further education, however, and was content with “floating around, you would say.”
Eventually, she took a home care job, working at that until 2016, when she stopped to have her daughter.
She never went back.
Then, last year, she began to think about returning to school. After a couple of months of beating the idea back and forth, and wondering if she even had the right mindset to study again after so long, she took the leap.
“I was encouraged to the point that I had to get up and do something. It’s either go back to school or go back to work, so I decided to take the challenge and come back to school,” she said.
Making it work
It hasn’t been easy, said Francis, who is enrolled in CNA’s two-year office administration program, but she’s making it work.
If for some reason she’s unable to get homework done in the evening, she’ll do it the next day, for example.
“There’s a lot of days I stays behind ‘til four o’clock just to get stuff done, so when I goes home I don’t have to take from (my daughter’s) time,” Francis explained.
“Is it a struggle? Oh, definitely. Is it days you wants to walk out and say I’m not coming back? Definitely. But it’s just for that spur of the moment and then you’re okay,” she says.
Francis has received two scholarships in recent months – one last fall from Grace Sparkes House, a women’s shelter in Marystown, and another last month from the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation (NLHC) open to the government agency’s tenants.
Returning to school and receiving the scholarships have boosted her self-esteem, acknowledged Francis, who says she has struggled with low confidence.
New driver
Going back to school isn’t the only accomplishment Mary Francis has recently achieved.
She just obtained a licence with the help of Young Drivers of Canada at the age of 36.
“I put it off. I wouldn’t go to motor registration to do the driver’s test. I come up with all kinds of excuses,” Francis said.
One morning she finally took the test and passed.
It was a proud moment, she said of receiving her licence.
“I just didn’t have the desire before to go and do it,” said Francis, adding she was encouraged by her friend Bert Bennett.
“The push is what I needs to kind of get over that moment and get up and do what needs to be done.”
‘It is possible’
Francis has also benefited from the support of others, she says, including Darrell Riggs at the Department of Advanced Education, Skills and Labour, who helped her with the process of returning to school and has been a source of encouragement.
Close friends, Wade and Geri Bennett and Wade’s brother Bert, have been there for her, as well, she says.
To other single parents who would like to go back to school, Francis says she wants to let them know it is doable.
“It is possible,” she says.
“You just have to have some kind of schedule and I guess the most important thing is to have some kind of support team behind you. I would never be able to do this without my support team.”
Assistance for single parents is out there, too, Francis says.
“You just have to go look for it. You just have to take that first step and reach out, and somebody will lead you where you needs to go,” she said.
Scholarship recipient
Mary Francis received a $1,000 scholarship from the Newfoundland and Labrador Housing Corporation (NLHC) in January.
The NLHC awards six scholarships, two in each of the Avalon/East, Central and Western/Labrador regions, to adult tenants annually.
The scholarships are awarded based on reviews that assess need, initiative and community involvement, according to the NLHC.
“I kind of forgot about it actually and was going on about my business,” Francis said, adding she was thrilled when she received the call recently.
Last September, Francis was also the recipient of a $1,000 educational scholarship from Grace Sparkes House, a women’s shelter in Marystown.
The scholarship is open to women who have availed of the organization’s services and are furthering their education.
Information on the NLHC scholarship
