Richard Antoine White on Growing Through Early Childhood Poverty

Grow Through It: Financial Issues, Poverty

Richard Antoine White, principal tubist of the Santa Fe Symphony and the New Mexico Philharmonic, and author of I’m Possible: A Story of Survival, a Tuba, and the Small Miracle of a Big Dream, describes surviving early childhood poverty and homelessness. His mother was an alcoholic fighting her own demons. He attributes his imagination, inner strength and ability to be his own hero with helping him grow through it. White believes that “all we want is a chance to make the right choices to see the kind of changes for the betterment” and considers his mother a hero for giving him up so that he could have that choice, chance, and change. He credits the village that raised and elevated him for what he has been able to achieve. White believes that caring for others creates contagious change and advocates for creating a caring environment in which we elevate everyone and pay it forward. And above all else, be kind!