Success Stories
Goodwill’s Newest Citizen
Novelette Alexander of Iowa City does not take lightly her ability to vote in this fall’s Presidential election. It is a right that she has earned, and one she proudly will exercise.
Novelette, a Goodwill staff member at the Iowa City Center, is Goodwill’s newest citizen. Her citizenship ceremony was the culmination of years of thought, planning and work.
Although Novelette had contemplated the idea of becoming a citizen for years, it was just within the last year that she became very focused on the goal. She traveled to Omaha in April 2007 to formally apply for citizenship. Then she studied, daily for as much as four hours, to be ready to take her citizenship test.
On September 11, 2007, Novelette traveled to Des Moines to take the citizenship test and to interview with immigration staff. She passed the test and immediately knew she was moving ahead with her goal to become a citizen.
On December 23, a letter arrived, telling her when and where the swearing in ceremony would be held. Then on January 18, Novelette traveled to Des Moines for the event, joining 82 other individuals, anxious to be citizens.
Next on her agenda...voting. “I want to vote. I want to put in my two cents.” Also high on her agenda... “Planting a tree. I want to buy a little house and plant a tree in my back yard.”
“As a citizen of the United States, I know I will be around to see it grow. Before, as a green card holder with one foot in Jamaica and one foot in the United States, there were no guarantees that I would have been here to see my tree grow,” she says. |
