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hello Blue Jays and welcome to the nest stories about life after Manor College i am your host Kelly Peiffer vice president of marketing communications and this is the best part of my day my hope is that this podcast will encourage inform and inspire you making you feel confident that at Manor College you belong here always what I've learned from talking with hundreds of Manor alumni over my 12 years of working for the college is that everyone has their own story and that Manor's influence big or small remains

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this constant thread and connection to each other before we get to today's guest it is time for a segment called Did You Know for today's did you know did you know that over 60% of Manor College students are first generation college students this means that they are the first in their families to attend and graduate from college just so we are clear what does being a first generation college student actually mean what if your cousin or your sibling went to college before you are you still first gen these are questions we hear

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often and I wanted to make sure we all understand yes as long as you are in the first generation of your family that attends college you and your siblings and your cousins are all in the same generation so just because they are older than you doesn't mean that you are not first gen you still are and your cousins and your siblings are as well because you're in that same generation together this is a big deal and something that we talk about a lot at Manor um I love hearing stories from our alumni and our students who are first

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generation college students about what it means to them to be first gen because usually it carries a lot of weight so one of our Manor alumni China mckinney she graduated with her degree in pre-nursing in 2023 china is the oldest of 12 12 kids i remember China she was a work study in um our advancement office so we would see her often in the offices and I remember her saying that her brothers and her sisters would be really sad when she would leave the house to go to college and come to here to Manor and

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that she really felt this big sense of like responsibility to go to college to graduate to show her siblings like this is what you do this is what you can do these are the possibilities and um we did a story on China when she was a student and I I looked back at that story recently and one of the quotes that kind of grabbed me was was this she said "I went to college for myself but I felt like I had to go to college and finish for them too." Referring to her 12 siblings what um what an honor it was

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for China to go to college but really what an honor it was for us to have China as a student and now an alum who's um she's going through a nursing school i am honored to welcome today's alumni guest today we have a truly inspiring guest joining us Riley Stone Riley is a Manor College graduate who's passionate about early childhood education and giving back to her community she is a Northeast Philadelphia native and a Mass Charter High School alum while at Manor Riley earned her associates degree in early

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childhood education in 2020 Riley's story is one of resilience and dedication she was actively involved on campus participating in the early childhood education club and contributing to Rotoract Club work with the Eagles Autism Challenge perhaps most impressively Riley founded her own charity Funds for Families after experiencing a traumatic brain injury at the age of 11 through this charity she crafts various items to raise money for gift cards which are then distributed to families with children experiencing

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long-term hospital stays at the Ronald McDonald House these cards and crafts help families with essential expenses like meals gas and clothing during challenging times currently Riley is determined to work in the field despite challenges she's faced she credits Dr Cherie Crosby Weeks at Manor College for making significant impact on her journey providing invaluable support and guidance during her transition from college to adult life we are thrilled to have Riley with us today welcome Riley hello

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hi thanks for being with us today okay so Riley start us off by sharing with us why did you choose Manor College and how did you find out about Manor College i chose MA I found out about Manor College um my mom saw it in the newspaper and she thought it would be a good fit because it was small and easy to maneuver with everything that happened to me my cognitive um disability and um everybody was just so nice and easy to talk to and the professors were very um it was just very small and like I said I wasn't getting lost there and the

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professors were just very approachable and helpful that's great yeah we hear we hear often that um the size really does make a difference in our students lives and how they find out about us and they're really attracted to kind of the small close-knit feel so that that's good to hear that you also resonated with that so describe to me your Manor experience what were you involved with what was kind of a day in the life as as a Riley at Manor like for you well it was really um nice because something I

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always cherished was my pop when my grandfather was alive he would drive me to Manor and that was like his big thing of his day like it was a big fighting so um he would drive me to school and I was I was a commuter so um and then I was my my day was I would go to two classes and then I would do two classes online at home i I just go I just would go Tuesdays and Thursdays and then the other days I would just do like my exercises at home i had a pretty good thing going i could go out with my dad i could just like

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spend time with family and then um I was involved with the clubs the early childhood club um just got involved with the groups and helping out with Sheree sheree was very big on if you're going to be a teacher you have to learn how to give back and you have to learn how to help families and children so she instilled that in us and taught us that example and um the community engagement like the um student life was very good they taught us how to um they always had dances and events and kept us busy

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that's great that's great so it sounds like you had some family involvement obviously you were doing your studies and then you were also working on getting involved from a student perspective and giving back that that's really cool and I love the the story you shared about your grandfather driving you and how that was a real highlight of his day i'm often pleasantly surprised that I I see not not the majority but um a number of students who get dropped off by family members and I think of one student in particular she's a current

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student right now her name is Natasha Moore and her dad drives her to campus every day and and he seems to love it he seems to like that's a part of his day that's part of his Yeah so it's really nice how um we kind of have that you know it's it's a familiar family feel that's really cool to see so for you what what about education really um makes you passionate and and lights that fire in you that you want to be an educator um I'm an all around like I like to help people like I like to um just be

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involved with people and have my hand a very hands-on i like to um just be like a big brother a big sister kind of like a a mentor to people like I've been through a lot of people i've been through a lot of like especially it's hard being a girl and growing up growing pains so I try to be like a light to young people like to like you're going to get there it's okay it's just you know it's you're going to have it's going to be a better day your future you got a whole future ahead of you kind of trying to just

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teach them during these hard times like like I've been through it and you like don't give up don't give up always always good advice no matter what you're going through in life and that's that's great um so so tell me have you had a chance to work in an education setting or are you still looking for that opportunity um I work at my church a little bit and um I worked a little bit in education and then I got kind of a little bit sick again so right now I'm kind of like looking like that's why I kind of wanted

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to talk a little bit on like if you have like if you go one way don't stress like you can always go a different way and you can always um do things on your own time like you don't have to worry about like what everybody else does like there's no timetable on what everybody like what everybody's working or there's no like work will always be there and you can um do things you have to work you have to um take care of yourself first before you can help other people and that's why I am with everything that happened to me when I

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was younger I'm a little bit behind independence wise because I um so I'm working on managing my medications better and learning how to do my doctor's appointments so I'm going to a um pretty soon I'll be going away to like a residential rehab for traumatic brain injuries and they can help me with my independence and they can help me just be able to kind of like get to work and you know they'll help me with all that job support but I'll be living on my own but kind of like under some supervision a little bit until I'm ready

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to really fly so everybody goes everybody has their own path I believe and you know you get there when you get there absolutely i I couldn't agree more and I think it's really inspiring how you are um self-aware of kind of your own situation and that you know I'm sure there's times of frustration where you want to be maybe somewhere further along in your journey and you're not or just things like that but how you're kind of um being an encouragement to others and saying like it's okay don't give up be

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resilient and and kind of finding what works for you i mean that's that's wonderful and I think that resonates with a lot of people um and that everyone's path is different and you might think oh in two years I'm going to be here but life doesn't always work like that sometimes life is life and um you know we have to be flexible um but also you know positive so that's that's really good to hear thank you for sharing that so what would you say is um some advice that you have for current Manor students who are maybe you know

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they're in in their semester right now midterms are coming up soon and um some are you know maybe struggling with academics and just kind of going through college life what's some advice you would give as someone who's kind of been through it um I guess like what you said like struggling with academics like I really really the tutoring lab got me through it like I really spent hours and hours in that tutoring lab and um social socializing like um being involved with the groups helped me um just just being being on time to

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class and just keeping your hands involved keeping your hands in there cuz you never know when somebody like you're going to down the road like hey Sheree by the way like is there any um early childhood opportunities or you just want to keep your um networks networking and yeah definitely and not I always tell alumni students whoever you know not just networking with your professors while you're a student but keep those connections alive post graduation you know stay connected to them on social media LinkedIn

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Facebook um because you just never know when paths are going to cross or when opportunities come come to them and then they want to spread it to their alumni and students so making sure that that network is still strong but foster those relationships when you're a student obviously and you know seize your opportunities when you can because um you're only a student for so long so you kind of can can use those opportunities but that's but that's great Riley i'm so happy to hear that um you're you're

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you're working on things and you're trying to um make sure set yourself up for the future and looking for that job support and and independent living i think those are really big important steps for you and I'm I'm excited to kind of see where where things go for you is there anything that you're really looking forward to in 2025 i'm just looking forward to kind of like when like when I got sick and everything people kind of started I don't know not in a bad way in a help in a good way but people started helping me

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with a lot of things and wanting to be helpful and so I'm looking forward to kind of finding my own and I want to try to just figure out what I like and who I am and like like I said sometimes you go a different way sometimes what you went to school for might not be your thing or might have got like just noted for I did like early I am very good with children children but I'm also very passionate about people with disabilities i help with a camp every summer it's called ability tree and it's just amazing amazing camp and it's just

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they they instill in you like people with disabilities are just people it's not rocket science how to get along with them you just got to talk to them it's like one of my passions one another thing I'm very passionate about sure of course and I think it it totally makes sense that um whatever you studied in college that might not be where you go in the future and that's that's probably more normal than not I would say honestly I think a lot of people you know they studied business and then they

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end up being a teacher or they studied education and then they end up going into nonprofit or you know just um but I think some of the core skills that you learn in a college setting and some of those core memories that you make can still apply to many different fields and and focuses so that's really cool to see well thank you so much for talking to us today Riley i really appreciate you taking the time thank you thank you for tuning in today if you like what you heard listen and subscribe on Spotify or YouTube and stay up to date

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with all new episodes by following Manor College on Instagram @ Manor College that's a wrap on another episode of the nest stories about life after Manor College remember Blue Jays you belong here always