Job Corps student finds success after struggles

PALMER — Life was never easy for Eugina “Gina” Mayeur.

But that didn’t stop her from snatching up every opportunity for success that came her way.

Mayeur was born in Ukraine in 1994, the only child of a poor family. She would never know her father, and grew up cooking and cleaning for herself, her mother and her grandfather. But her family took her role in the household for granted, and when she was 7, she entered an orphanage for the first time.

In the beginning, it was hard to keep Mayeur, now 21, at the orphanage because she kept running away. But each time she went home, she gained another bruise, another violation of her innocence at the hands of her grandfather. Her mother drank to excess and was not there for her, Mayeur said, so the orphanage soon became her permanent residence.

On a “field trip” to Germany, where the orphans were presented before potential parents for adoption, Mayeur met the couple who would take her to the United States. She was 9, and thought she would soon have a better life.

Things didn’t work out with her new parents, and by the time Mayeur entered Mid Valley High School in Meadow Lakes, she had resorted to couch surfing. It was at Mid Valley that she met MY House founder Michelle Overstreet, who was a life coach at the school at the time.

Overstreet was just preparing to start her nonprofit, and asked Mayeur if she’d be interested in being a volunteer. When the organization’s Gathering Grounds Café opened, Mayeur became one of its first baristas. She was the first to try out the housing provided by MY House, renting an apartment with her salary.

She was also one of the first people who had been classified homeless to get into the Alaska Job Corps in Palmer.

Job Corps Business Community Liaison Barbara Hunt said it had been difficult to provide dormitory housing for students like Mayeur who, though circumstantially homeless, had legal guardians to go home to. But when Sen. Lisa Murkowski secured a policy change with the U.S. Department of Labor in May of 2013, Job Corp’s definition of homeless grew to include students in situations like Mayeur’s.

New hope

Today, Mayeur is almost finished with her program of study, Accounting Services, at Job Corps. Because of her good standing at the school and her involvement in five on-campus leadership groups (including student government), she has scored several short-term jobs over the year-and-three-months she’s been at Job Corps. That’s also why she’ll soon be starting her second trade, Office Administration. And this month, she was awarded a donated car through a MY House program, having met the nonprofit’s criteria of possessing a driver’s license, insurance, a place to live (other than the car) and a job.

“Ever since I came to Alaska I have been keen on doing the best I can so that I can show other people that even though you’ve had a difficult life situation, you can always overcome it,” Mayeur said during an interview at her Job Corps dorm room on Wednesday.

Mayeur currently has no roommate, and despite her apology for a “messy” room, her space is sparsely decorated with drawings, recent photos with a couple close friends, and words of inspiration. Her name, Eugina — roughly pronounced YevGENya in Ukraine — is spelled out above her bed. Its one of the few things she’s kept from her birth country, along with two passports from her youth.

Mayeur said she has no desire to return to Ukraine, but prefers to see it in a more positive light from afar. The Russian candy she buys at Matryoshka European Deli in Wasilla is one thing that preserves the few good memories from her childhood.

It’s through that deli, Mayeur said, that she’s been able to preserve her Russian skills, as well as a little Ukrainian, by talking to the owners. Though she has little fondness for Ukraine, she refuses to lose any part of her “original self” by forgetting her first language.

Looking forward

As she prepares to start her second program at Job Corps after New Year’s Day, Mayeur is planning her future, bit by bit. She has goals of working for the city or the state, particularly under Palmer Mayor Delena Johnson, as well as, eventually, attending the University of Oxford in England. Though she said she loves math, she pictures herself as an English major abroad, she said.

Her ultimate goal, however, is just to help people. Mayeur said she has quickly become a go-to person for her peers in their times of stress, need and doubt, especially through her role in the school’s Student Government Association. Her Christian faith inspires everything she does, she said, but her message to fellow Job Corps students is often simply one of encouragement, kindness and mutual respect.

“The past is in the past and this is our time to mature into adulthood. We are here to help each other, not to tear each other down.”

That philosophy is a big part of the reason Mayeur’s been leading the local charge on Job Corps’ national anti-violence campaign, Youth to Youth. To learn more about this program, visit jobcorpsy2y.com.

Contact reporter Caitlin Skvorc at 352-2266 or caitlin.skvorc@frontiersman.com.