This month is filled with appearances by HarlemLIVE alums. Today Alumni Ashleigh Covington stopped by the office after a long absence. She hasn't been by the office so long that she got lost when she was coming up here.

"I took the 2 train and started walking the opposite direction, and then I'm like this doesn’t look familiar," Ashleigh said.

Ashleigh first came to HarlemLIVE in 2003 after her friend Giselly, who is another alumni of the organization, told her about the program. This Brooklyn resident would come into the office everyday after school and even on Saturdays.
During her time at HarlemLIVE she mainly focused on photography and web design. But one of her proudest achievements at HarlemLIVE was speaking at the Harlem Chamber of Commerce.

“It was my first public speaking event for HarlemLIVE. I had a stuttering problem then but I actually did pretty good, “ she said.

Ashleigh’s most memorable experience at HarlemLIVE was going on a full-paid trip to Vermont to teach kids from the former U.S.S.R. about technology. She got to stay with complete strangers during her stay but was surprisingly surprised about how much fun she had there.

“My host were sown-to-earth people, really nice,” Ashleigh said.

When asked, what was her most embarrassing moment at HarlemLIVE she replied that it was the day she played hooky from school and came up to the office.

“I didn’t go to school one day and I came [into HarlemLIVE] in the morning. I had opened the door because I have keys and the alarm went off and I didn’t know the code. I called Rich but he wasn’t answering his phone. I thought I was going to jail. Luckily his alarm wasn’t that good because no one showed,” said Ashleigh.

Now that this 20 year old is out of high school and planning to start college in the fall at John Jay College she had this last thing to say about her time at HarlemLIVE.

“I learned you can work and have fun at the same time.”

posted by Anonymous @ 6/02/2006 06:23:00 PM