Rebuilding After the Battle: Help Me Earn My MBA

Hi everyone, My name is Xochitl Calix, and first of all, this is really humbling for me to do — but I truly feel like I owe it to myself to take one final shot at what almost feels like a distant cause. 

I love school and I deeply care about helping and supporting the community. Especially if you met me you know, for a while, it felt like I was on a roll, like I had a plan, like everything I sought to achieve I did. I was social, I was present, and had a plan for how I played a future role in my communities to help make them thrive. I had fought the statistics of not graduating college because I grew up in a single parent home, experienced violence and abuse or even things like going through the foster care system. Then I started to go silent more and more as my battles began to build up. 

A few years ago, after losing my partner in a fatal motorcycle accident, I moved back to Detroit from Ann Arbor/Ypsi. I was carrying a lot of grief but also a lot of hope. During this time, I had to rebuild my vision of the future and found myself heavily involved in local community work. It was in those moments of community service and rebuilding that I realized pursuing my MBA could position me to execute my vision on a greater scale.

I applied to a new program at Wayne State for entrepreneurship and innovation— and I got in!

Right as the program started, I found out a trip to Honduras that I had helped plan for my mother — who hadn’t returned to her homeland in 29 years since we gained her residency — was rescheduled to fall in the middle of the semester. After everything we had been through, there was no way I could miss it. Due to COVID this was also the 6th time it was rescheduled.

Shortly after, life threw another curveball: I was diagnosed with cancer. Through all of the chaos, I had to withdraw from school. I've chosen to stay silent with major battles and only very close family and friends knew about it. 

We came back from Honduras and I decided to continue working as a pre-school teacher.  While planning to transfer work locations, I became a full-time teacher post-COVID, and with my certifications, was asked to become a bilingual social studies teacher. That quickly turned into a full-time math teaching role. Throughout that time, I had surgery and became clear from cancer. I decided to start my MBA again before my second year of teaching math.

I soon realized it was impossible to give 100% to both my students and my studies at the same time, especially teaching math full-time in both English and Spanish. We had also just led the district in passing regional math growth rates and projections for the first time, so I chose to continue teaching — and during that time, another opportunity came.

One day, when I was really struggling with grief after my biological father's passing and the weight of teaching post-COVID, the P.E. instructor came into my classroom and asked me if I wanted to coach the school's first volleyball team. Coaching saved me during that time. We went from being total underdogs to becoming local champions that year. I’ll never forget receiving over 50 personalized "sorry for your loss" letters from my students after my dad passed away — and a huge cinnamon roll hug that I still carry with me today.

While building my small business, I’ve been able to make a difference in real ways. I’ve helped non-English speaking individuals navigate the immigration system, including helping them obtain Employment Authorization, I've supported workers recover unpaid wages when they couldn't advocate for themselves due to language barriers and other things like helped aspiring and established entrepreneurs create websites, flyers, mobile videos, business cards, and more — to help them take real steps toward stability and growth.

In all honesty, this past year has been one of the hardest. As I was starting to rebuild again, I found out I had cancer for the second time. It weighed heavily on me, but I kept up with my appointments and treatments. Today, I'm incredibly thankful to say I am cancer-free again.

I've been privileged to impact hundreds of students’ lives over the past decade, and their energy has inspired me to launch and continue a structured math engagement program that started with eight pre-identified young students in our community. Please feel free to click the link for more information or go to my business page Calyx Consulta LLC for a video presentation. 

But while these successes are meaningful, my business is not yet sustainable enough to carry me through this next phase alone. 

Here’s where your support comes in:

• $6,935 is needed to cover fees to enroll, tuition, registration, and fees for the next semester. For example, next up on my plan of work is : BA6090 Quantitative Analysis Theory and Application, BA7070 Social Perspectives on Business Enterprise, and MGMT 7660 Entrepreneurship and Innovation. 

• An additional $2,000 will fund a 6-week structured tutoring program for the second cohort of girls

Every donation will help me move one step closer to finishing my MBA, expanding community programming, and continuing to offer free resources to our neighborhoods.

Additionally, much of the money donated will be used to provide math support and mentoring in the community. Upon graduating and reaching a place to return to, I would like to match what was raised and turn it into micro scholarships for the next generation of students in the name of another significant other I lost recently, this time due to bone cancer.

Most of my education has been paid for through hard work, scholarships, and savings, but I’ve humbly hit a roadblock — and I’m reaching out for community support at a time when giving up feels tempting, but rebuilding feels necessary. 

If you'd like to see any documentation related to school, the math program, or anything else, I’m happy to share privately. The math engagement program will also be documented and shared as the journey unfolds!

Any amount truly helps. From the bottom of my heart, thank you for reading, supporting, and believing in the possibility of a better tomorrow. I have been taking steps in taking care of my mental and physical health as this has been a priority after the past few years and a need that is extremely important as i help others in their lives'.

I have attached some pictures and videos as well that highlight some of the parts of my journey. If I could show you more, I would show you students at the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame, students learning therapeutic techniques through adventure camp, learning to code through MIT's Scratch program for aspiring coders and much more. 

With love and determination, Xochitl Calix

*DISCLAIMER: I do not have the right to charge your card for future payments by providing your card information for donation.* Thank you!