"I was walking past one day with my son Greg and I wanted to know what it was about. So I came up here and I feel like we're family. I like being here because it's family here, and we all get along and I don't like to see nobody mistreating nobody. And so The Stand is like a place where you can come feel comfortable, you know, be yourself here.

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When I met Judie, Judie is like a momma to me and we did stuff together, it's just like a lot of fun to be here. I loved hanging around with Judie. She reminded me of my Grand momma, and she was like a momma to me. And any time she needed help with anything all she had to do is let me know. You know she told me that she was glad that I was here because if somebody comes in here with some drama, everybody comes to me because I speak my mind, and I'll let them know you can't come up in here with that. Because that's not what this place is about, and if your gonna come up in here with that then you can't come here.

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I like helping people, I like going places and doing stuff with people and helping people. I'm asking you if you need help just let me know, if I got it, or if you need me to do something, I'm there. That's what I like about the Stand. But I just wanna see it stay open and see people, you know, with problems, even if they ain't got problems, they can come over here and be their self, as long as they ain't no drama.

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I quit school in the 10th, I was pregnant, back then when you pregnant, they didn't let you go to the Heights School, and that's where I was going. They sent me to Vanderlaane, and I dropped outa school in the 10th grade, and I never went back. I've been wanting to go back but I can't deal with it, with the way my head be hurting. You know, I was hit in the head with a pipe in '82 so I have real bad severe headaches. All I know is I'm sitting in the house and I'm doing a crossword puzzle. My husband, Greg's daddy, come and ask me, well he accuse me of his brother. So I told him "I don't want you, or your brother or ya'll friends", and went back to doing my puzzle. Next thing I know I'm getting hit in the head with a pipe. When I went to the hospital, the Dr. said if he had hit me one more time, he'd have killed me, because I had to have stitches on the inside and the outside. The way he used to beat on me, he taught me well, and I said "The next man that puts his hands on me, one of us has gotta go because I don't do nothing to nobody, but I'm not gonna let no man keep putting their hands on me."

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I can tell when I'm gonna have a headache because it will swell up on the side where he hit me, and it will just go to doing like that like it's just throbbing! And then I can't hardly see, when he did something I guess it did something to the retina, or whatever you call that in the back of my eye, so I can't see without glasses, I can't see nothing. Like when I'm gonna get a real bad headache, my eyes have blurry eyesight, I go to stumbling and like I'm on something, I'm falling into stuff, and I have to catch myself. If it's just light, and I take like a Tylenol or something it'll stop, but everything I take puts me to sleep and I don't like to sleep like that, so I don't really take nothing I just deal with it. But if it gets real bad, like when I'm stumbling and I can't see, I just lay down, and take Tylenol or something and lay down, and go to sleep, but when I wake up, I've still got it.

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I have a passion for helping people and being there when they need help, you know, from the heart. And I like to cook and I like to clean, I can't stand being in nothing nasty, if I see something on the floor I gotta get it up. I'm like a, what they call that? C.O.D? When you clean up a lot and can't stand to see mess? That's the type of person I am.

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Every time I get money, that's what I get, movies. I like true story movies, horror movies, I like karate movies, comedy movies. And if I see a movie on tv I write it down and go and try to find it.

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I like meeting new people and getting to know people, and if anybody need help, I'm right there. All you gotta do is just ask. That's how my momma raised me." 

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The above story was put into writing by Pat ApPaul, a Welsh Documentary Photographer based in Michigan USA.