She has never wandered far from the Twin Towers neighborhood in East Dayton where she grew up, though Leslie Sheward certainly had reason to seek out a better life away from a community that has been deteriorating for decades.

“I grew up in a home where my father died early in my life,” Sheward said. “I was raised by my mother and my grandmother, who was emotionally abusive to me. She told me often that I should have never been born and that I would never amount to anything and that I wouldn’t succeed in life.”

Sheward said her grandmother’s stinging words not only caused her to get poor grades in school but stuck with her throughout most of her adult life, too, causing her live out this “self-fulfilling prophesy” of sorts. “I would set myself up in situations that would cause failure,” Sheward said.

Surrounded by a neighborhood of deteriorating and boarded up houses, Sheward looked on the outside like a confident, successful community advocate, eventually becoming a passionate leader and president of her neighborhood association. “It was very strange that I was able to help other people succeed but not myself,” she said.

Still living in her mother’s house, which was purchased with money given to the residents of the area displaced when U.S. 35 was constructed, Sheward became involved with the East End Community Center and met the executive director, Jan Lepore-Jentleson, about 12 years ago.

“Jan took an interest in my success,” Sheward said. “She recognized that I was intelligent and saw right away that I didn’t have a lot of self-worth. I was involved with the center’s afterschool program, and the folks there got me to see that I was so much more than people were telling me that I was.”

Lepore-Jentleson has been at the helm of East End Community Services since its founding 15 years ago and was immediately impressed with Sheward when she met her. “Leslie was between jobs and was looking for something meaningful to do and was eager to improve her academic credentials,” Lapore-Jentelson said. “We have the Pathways Out of Poverty program, and it gave her the opportunity to train to do deconstruction in her own neighborhood through Dayton Works Plus, a program that actually takes down eyesore properties. We’ve always known that Leslie is a really hard worker, and we needed people for that program that didn’t mind hard work. She did a great job in the program.”

Sheward said that the deconstruction project gave her the self-confidence she needed, but “I’m in my 50s, and it was really hard work.” So with her future in mind, today she is attending classes at Sinclair Community College, where she has been on the dean’s list every quarter, and is working toward a degree in early childhood education. When she completes her associate degree, her intention is to attend the University of Dayton to study child advocacy.

“My goal is to help children overcome hurdles before they get to their 50s so they can grow up confident and successful,” she said.

The Twin Towers Neighborhood Association meets the first Monday of every month at New Hope Church on Xenia Avenue at 7 p.m. For more information, call Sheward at (937) 361-8892.