The most important thing about being a mother is leading by example. What do you do when you have nothing? A year ago I found myself homeless with my daughters. The whole shelter experience for the kids, I kept telling them that we were just on vacation and waiting for the house to be ready. That's the worst thing I ever had to do. I grew up in the housing projects in East Nashville, so nobody ever talked about career paths. I didn't know what to do or where to go, but I kept saying, "They are watching how you handle this. You have a serious example to set for these girls." Most people think that Goodwill is just a retail store, but it's so much more than that. While I was living at the shelter, I decided to reach out to their career center and I actually got a job as an office [inaudible] for Goodwill. A co-worker told me that Goodwill and Google actually have a program to provide IT training, the program is called the IT Support Professional Certificate. When I learned that I could get a scholarship through Goodwill, it was life-changing. Chelsea is the person Goodwill was designed to support. That's why thanks to the assistance of Google.org, we started the Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator. Using tools and resources from Grow with Google, the Goodwill Digital Career Accelerator is focused on connecting more than a million people with the skills they need to advance in digital careers. The Google IT Support Professional Certificate was a great building block for this. I joined the 4:00 AM club, I would get up while the girls were asleep, do my schoolwork. While I was studying, I learned that a Google representative was going to come and give a tech talk at Goodwill. I had to go. Chelsea really stood out when I met her at the Goodwill event, she asked some really interesting questions and the enthusiasm was tangible. So I asked her to send me her resume. When I got my interview, I was so nervous, I wasn't sure if I was good enough. During the interview process, Chelsea demonstrated not only the foundational technical knowledge that she'd developed, but her initiative. That's exactly what we need for people who are working in our data centers. So we brought her onboard. I absolutely love my job. When I first got the job, my daughter, she was like, "Mom, you got this job, that means we'll have a house forever." In the year that we've been working with Google.org, we've seen more than a quarter of a million people build their digital skills. Almost 30,000 people have gone to work. A year ago, I wasn't sure where my life was going. I thought everything was falling apart. I feel hopeful about the future now. I want my daughters to know that they can achieve any goal that they can set for themselves. My goal is to be a developer, and this is what I want to do. I have come this far, I plan to get to the stars. My name is Chelsea Rucker, and I'm a Data Center Technician for Google.