Despite a few wrong turns, Willard International Hotel employee Belinda Chambers is trying to stay on a healthy path with a little help from Community Family Life Services, Christ House, and the Lord.
A life-long Washington, DC resident, Belinda fondly recalls her childhood in the District, starting school at Immaculate Conception and then attending Garrison Elementary School off of Vermont Avenue before going to Shaw Junior High.
Between schools, Belinda found time to participate in a youth theater program at Arena Stage, where she earned a certificate and performed in a few skits. She also participated in chorus during high school.
“But I wanted to do modeling,” Belinda said. She studied at Barbizon School of Modeling “way up on Connecticut Avenue” and tried out to be Miss DC. “I made it about halfway … I wanted to be a model, but that didn’t work out,” Belinda said.
High school didn’t work out either. Belinda started high school at Cardozo High School, “where I graduated, except for one year,” she said, explaining that she was half a credit shy of graduating. When asked whether she ever earned a GED, Belinda replied that she hadn’t “because I made a wrong turn somewhere.”
After high school Belinda was on her own, and she had a son, Larry Marcus, when she was 18 years old. Larry was a “sickly” child born with bronchial asthma, and Belinda spent almost two years in and out of Children’s Hospital before his tonsil were finally removed.
Belinda laughs about the job she held at McDonalds, “but I made manager,” she adds proudly. Belinda left McDonald’s for Sandwhich Chef in Crystal City, but the commute took its toll on her financially. She eventually worked at nursing school to become a nurse’s assistant and worked at Oak Meadow Retirement Home.
Then, when Belinda was 26, she had a daughter, Keyania Denise, and became a stay-at-home mother. But being a stay-at-home mother bored Belinda, so she drank. Keyania’s father, Edward Stephen McKenny, died of a brain tumor when Keyania was ten years old, and Belinda said she “just ran through the streets and acted like a crazy person.” Larry was living with his father, and Keyania’s godmother, Pearl A. Hall, Belinda’s “very good friend,” took care of Keyania.
Belinda continued to drink and worked day jobs at construction sites sweeping floors. It was hard work, and she had to be up at dawn. However, she “still had the lord,” though she was getting tired of her lifestyle and bored with her work.
One day, Belinda woke up in a hospital. “The nurses asked me, ‘Do you know where you are?’ and I said ‘I know I’m not at my house because I don’t have curtains like that,’” she said. The nurses told her that she had had an alcohol-induced seizure. “Since the alcohol got me there, that was it for the alcohol,” she said explaining that she left the hospital with some pills to help her feel better and a commitment to getting sober.
After leaving the hospital, she went to her first Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Twenty-one years later, she’s still sober.
Though she was working selling The Washington Post and Washington Times in the mornings, her work wasn’t keeping her busy enough. “In the way that I was, I had nothing to do… that idle time will get you in trouble if you have nothing to do,” she said.
Belinda explained to a social worker at Christ House on Columbia Road that she was bored all day and would like a different job. The social worker told her about the 3rd and Eats food service training program, through the Community Family Life Services, where she could learn how to prepare food, serve people, and clean-up afterward. “It is a wonderful program,” Belinda said, adding that after completion of the program, she was “ready for a job.”
The program also helped Belinda prepare for interviews. “In my case, for example, a couple of hotels were looking for cooks,” she said. When Belinda graduated from the program in 1997, she was the 101st graduate, and the Willard International Hotel offered her a year-long internship, which she accepted.
Seven years later, Belinda is happily working as a prep cook at the Willard. “I put the food on the lines, put out the breakfast, set up the lunch, help out with the dishes… I say I’ve got seven jobs in one,” she said.
“The people are wonderful. They were wonderful when I started, and they are still wonderful… it’s like a happy family there,” she said, grateful that the Willard hotel trained her and gave her a job. “Before, I had nothing. Now, I have something … It’s like a miracle,” she said. “I’m not going to take a drink because that’s the solution to everything … I stay happy and try to keep going in the right direction.”
