JAMESTOWN, N.Y. — As a mother of five daughters and a former football player, Jerica Barnard has developed a certain toughness and perseverance.
Sure, going to college for the first time isn’t always easy. But it isn’t anything that Barnard can’t succeed at with a little campus support.
Barnard is part of the SPREE Single Parents Reaching Education to Employment program at SUNY Jamestown Community College and also is a student worker for the program under Wende Lescynski, JCC’s director of Adult Learner Initiatives.
“Wende is such a good person to be able to just come up and have a simple conversation with,” Barnard said. “If I ever need anything, she's the first person to tell me, ‘Oh, I can do that, or let's get that done.’ And it's helped me because I'm able to tell other people, ‘Hey, if you need that, we have this.’ And now that I know that it's available for me, I'm able to spread the news for others.”
SPREE provides single mother JCC students with a personal achievement coach, peer support groups, employment services, food and financial assistance, emergency funds, and other specialized services.
As a SPREE student worker on the Jamestown Campus, Barnard is involved daily in reaching out to fellow single mother students at JCC and supporting them anyway she can.
“I'll call out to a list of students that we have enrolled in the program and see if there's any needs that we can assist them with, if there's anything that we could do better for them or in the SPREE program at all,” Barnard said. “And then also I reach out to students in my classes while I'm not in the office and see if they are a part of the program. If they're not, then I'll bring them up, and get information and let them know about the program and enroll them.”
It was Lescynski who first connected with Barnard before she started at JCC this fall. Barnard was returning to Jamestown from Texas after 20 years away from the city she was born.
“I came and met with Wende, and she was somebody that I felt like I could rely on,” Barnard said. “We had a very long talk and then she told me I think you'd be great for my assistant, and here we are.”
Barnard is majoring in Physical Education Studies, with the hopes of becoming a basketball coach and mentor to the area’s youth.
“While being here I wanted to help give back to the community,” she said. “I know a lot of athletes and I'm an athlete myself, so I wanted to be able to help the athletes grow. So along with teaching, I love sports. So I just put it together.”
Athletics are in Barnard’s blood. She was a wrestler, youth football player with the boys, and a star track athlete growing up in Jamestown before moving away at age 14. Starting in 2019, she also played professional football for 2 1/2 years for the Houston Energy of the Women’s Football Alliance.
“I played for the Northside Warriors when I was younger,” Barnard said. “At first I was a cheerleader and did not like that. And then I wrestled and I was like, ‘Oh, I like this.’ So then I became a football player. I told the cheerleaders, ‘I'm sorry, you can cheer for me.’”
Barnard is motivated by her daughters – the middle one came with her to Jamestown while the other four remain in Texas with their father – to keep moving forward. Thanks to her dedication, SPREE support, and the campus job, Barnard is on the way to reaching her goals.
“The SPREE program has helped me out in many ways,” Barnard said. “I was also in a troubling state at a point in time, and they helped me with a grant to help fund certain things. They've helped me emotionally and spiritually.”