Vendor of the Week: Jennifer Adams

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Vendor of the Week: July 1-7, 2009

"I'm a people person," Jennifer says.

Enough said. Because anyone who knows Jennifer will tell you: her laughter, kindheartedness, and unfettered altruism are contagious.

It probably has to do with the fact that she's an artist. After all, since the age of 3 Jennifer has always been creating something: music, paintings, drawings, quilts — the list goes on. She plays violin, viola, cello, and stand-up bass, and stands proud that she was consistently the first chair in her school ensemble. She has a lot to be proud of.

Among other things, Jennifer also enjoys riding her bike. The thrill of coasting down hills and feeling the wind in your face offers a perfect accompaniment to her free-spirited persona. That feeling, however, was hampered by the accident.

"I was in the hospital for seven days," Jennifer reflects. She remembers it like it was yesterday: riding her bike at the Woodland Park Zoo when a car unexpectedly backed up, throwing her off her saddle and onto the ground. She severely injured three of her lower lumbar vertebrae, and was hospitalized.

Having lost her job managing a storage facility a few months earlier, Jennifer didn't have health care, not to mention the fact that she was struggling to pay the rent. And when the pain medication ran out, self-medication ensued.

Shortly thereafter she found Real Change: "I used to buy the paper when I was still working in the corporate world downtown [so] I thought back to that," she tells me. Three years later she's still at it, selling throughout Ballard, Fremont, and Wallingford while working odd jobs on the side — mostly light landscaping, yard cleanup, and home cleaning (none of which are particularly easy on the back). But nonetheless, shes persevering.

"I'm a forward thinker," Jennifer says. "I can get myself out of a paper bag faster than anybody else. In fact, I could take the paper bag and figure out how to make it into something else."

To her customers, she says: "Thank you for your support. Not just for me, but for all of us... I love everybody I meet, and I meet a lot of people."

- Story and Video by Alex Becker, Real Change Intern and Contributing Writer

www.realchangenews.org

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Nonprofits & Activism

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