"I had a son that I gave up for adoption when I was 22 years old. It was the biggest heartbreak of my life, but now we are in touch and he has a child and get to sneak peaks at my grandchild. I have four more children who I have raised - three daughters and one son. Motherhood has really been the most empowering thing in my life. My youngest child, my son, is transgender and wants to be called Hazel. So I guess I really have four daughters." - Cara Valente Compton is a Truman Scholar and she attended the Truman Foundation's 40th Anniversary Party at Gracie Mansion earlier this month.
Regina Garcia
"I was 17 pregnant and single. I didn't tell my family because I was scared. They thought I was getting fat and kept putting me on diets. When I was 9 months pregnant I started having pains and I called my friend. I snuck out of the house and my friend took me to the hospital. She went back to my house to tell my mother I was pregnant and in the hospital and my mother passed out. I was going to give the baby up for adoption but my Mother said we should keep him and raise him. When he was 20 he was shot in the back by a kid who had to kill someone to get initiated into a gang." - Regina Garcia is part of the New Jersey Chapter of Mothers In Charge