By Pattie Mihalik

I want to tell you about 15-year-old Lynn.

At an age when friends are important, Lynn finds it hard to make friends.

She doesn’t wear the right kind of jeans.

She doesn’t wear brand-name sneakers. Her sneakers came from the donation bin at a secondhand shop. And she’s proud of her thrift. She’s proud of finding ways to survive.

Lynn is good at scouring thrift stores to find what she needs.

She doesn’t get invited to “hang out” with other girls, but that’s OK with her. She doesn’t have time to do that, even if she were asked.

After school each day Lynn rushes to a construction site where she works alongside her father shoveling dirt, pounding nails and in general just doing everything to help the home get built.

It’s going to be small home, modest at best. But it will be a most special place for Lynn, her father and her brother.

It will be special because it will be their very own place.

For the past 18 months, ever since they were evicted from their apartment, her father, Chris, has been sleeping in his car then sneaking in to work early so he can shower before anyone gets there.

In the meantime the kids had to live with a grandmother who wasn’t happy about having them.

It may be hard for many of us to believe that someone like Chris who works full time at an assisted living facility can’t afford to rent most places. But rents around here keep climbing and his salary doesn’t.

There are times when he can’t even afford food. When he was desperate he went to a food bank saying he needed food for his kids. He didn’t care about himself but he needed to take care of them.

He said asking for help was humbling and embarrassing, but it turned out to be a good thing in the long run.

That was where he learned about the Habitat for Humanity program that built homes for qualified needy families. Part of qualifying meant putting in 1,000 volunteer hours helping to build the home.

Chris worked the early shift at work so he could get finished by 3 and go directly to the Habitat for Humanity home site.

Lynn rushed home from school every day to help her dad accumulate those hours. She did more than her share to make it happen and said she was happy to do it.

When I asked Chris if I could interview his daughter for an article on getting by when things are tough, he said she was a private person so he didn’t know if she would share her feelings.

Lynn was open and candid, asking only that her last name or address not be used.

First of all, let me tell you how touching it was to watch Lynn with her father.

“He’s my hero,” she says. “When my mom left us to live with a drug dealer, he promised he would always be there to take care of us. And he is.”

The most important thing in her life, she says, is her father followed by doing well in school.

She has firm goals about graduating with high grades because she wants to apply to a military academy.

“I know I’ll find a way to get to college if I work hard enough,” she told me.

I couldn’t help contrasting this highly motivated teenager with other college-bound kids I’ve come in contact with.

According to their parents, they only work on their college essay after a lot of parental prodding and screaming.

The kids don’t even fill out their own college applications.

“That’s too hard for them,” one parent told me.

If filling out an application is “too hard,” will college be any easier?

I’m sorry, but I have to say it. Many parents do too much for their kids. They try to give them everything, but in the process they rob them of self-initiative, valuable learning experiences and so much more.

When a close friend complained to me about having to fill out her son’s college application then having to push and prod him to sign up for courses on time, she didn’t like my answer.

“Maybe he doesn’t deserve to go to college. Are you sure he wants to?”

She said not having a college degree would hurt him in life and she didn’t want that.

Three years later, after several failing semesters, her son dropped out of school. He’s now trying to get certified in air-conditioning maintenance.

I’ve always believed when kids want something badly enough, they work for it.

So many have stories similar to mine of struggling to have the privilege of going to college.

When my father was at the end of his life, he told me his biggest regret was not being able to send me to college.

“It hurt so much to see you struggle for years,” he said.

I told him it was one of the best things that ever happened to me.

I believe having little is often superior to having everything.

That’s why I think Lynn is lucky. She might not have been so resourceful if she had everything handed to her.

By the way, the last time I saw Chris and Lynn, they were sobbing - crying tears of joy as they moved into their own little house.

Contact Pattie Mihalik at newsgirl@comcast.net.