PENSACOLA, Fla. — Life isn’t always easy being an adolescent and young teen. Luckily, for some, Jean Gracia is there to help lighten the load and set them on a path for success where they can actually enjoy just being a middle school student. Sue Straughn tells us, he’s one of the Angels In Our Midst.
“Stresses a lot of times get folded onto the child. They bear a lot of that. I see a lot of that here. Kids come here and they know all of the issues that are going on at home. They know all of the bills that are due. They know all of the problems that the parents are having but they can’t solve any of those problems but they carry it with them on their shoulders. And that’s tough for like a 10, 11, 12.” Jean Gracia is a military veteran skilled at maneuvers who now seems the perfect guide to help students through those tough times. He’s a Children’s Home Society navigator assigned to Jim Bailey Middle School. To help some of his students just get through the day, he tries to keep his tool box supplied with the basics they may be lacking-clothes, personal care items, food. The struggles at home that they bring to school are real.
Jean says, “Life consumes us. You know, we get caught in just the everyday life surviving every single day. And I think that people get to a point where they don’t know how to survive and they’re tired of just surviving and they just want to get ahead. They want to get their head more that being just above water. They want to be able to walk again.”