Sandra Sims

I am where I'm at today because of my family. When I needed a babysitter, my sister would always step in and never charge me a dime. My mom would come down to stay for a week. I couldn't have traveled when I was a regional trainer for Dollar Tree stores covering Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, and Missouri if it wasn't for them. My daughter was still in school, and before I took that position, I called my sister and told her about it. She said, 'Make the decision that you want to make, and we'll deal with the rest.' I never had to worry because my sister has been my rock, my mother has been my rock. They would pick my daughter up from school if needed or keep her for a week. The only reason I could say yes to opportunities was because they gave me that opportunity. My family was everything. I will ground my daughter and take her to my sister, and she wouldn't be grounded anymore! But my daughter would tell you that she has lots of sisters and brothers because we raised our children like that. My sister could drop her kids off and go out of town, and she knew that I was gonna love her child just as much as I love my child.

The best advice I ever received came from my mentor Michael Noel on my very first day. I was going to quit because I walked into the store and saw how bad it was, and I thought, 'Oh my god, this is horrible. I'm not gonna do it.' But Michael told me something that changed everything. He said, 'If this was perfect, I wouldn't need you. I need you because I know that you can get this fixed.' He had more faith in me than I had in myself. When he asked, 'Can you do that?' I looked at him and said, 'Absolutely. Yeah, I can do it.' Then I walked away thinking, 'What did I just say?' I doubted myself, but there was no way in the world I was not gonna fix it because he had more faith in me than I had in myself. That taught me that when someone believes in you like that, you can't let them down. He was the hardest person I ever worked for in my life, but he was the best person I've ever worked for. His standards were so high, and you just never wanted to let him down.

Believe in yourself. When you think you can't, you still have another chance. You gotta be your own cheerleader. Sometimes as women, we're the first to say we can't do this, or we go ahead and let somebody else do it. No, sometimes you just have to be okay being the person that says, 'You know what, I can do it, and if I can't do it, I'll figure out how.' You might not know how to do it right now, but you can figure it out. Don't let your blessings pass you by and say no to opportunities. Go ahead and take that chance. It's okay to fail and learn from the failure, and then get up and start all over if you need to. If I would have listened to other people, I would not be where I'm at today. Life's gonna happen. You're gonna fail. If you don't, you're one of the lucky ones. But all those failures just make you stronger when that success comes. There's always a lesson in it, good or bad. God took you through all of this so that you can help somebody else along the way. Don't keep your story to yourself. Share it, because it can help somebody else.

Service above self is what guides everything I do. That's what the Rotary says, and it just ties in with what CCA does. We're just the hands and feet of Jesus, trying to do good in the community. It's neighbors helping neighbors. If you look at it that way, your neighborhood's gonna be so much better if we're taking care of each other. If somebody falls down, we should be reaching down and pulling them back up. That's what this organization does, that's what Rotary does, and in all the chambers that I'm a member of, a lot of them do business with people because you want to build them up. Our organization is all about giving people dignity and choice in everything they do. A choice in the food they're gonna fix their kids at home, a choice in the clothing they're gonna get for back to school, a choice in the toys their kids are gonna get at Christmas, because the parents are the heroes. I'm just a small part of that because I get to fundraise for those people that can't ask for themselves.