Ms. Foundation honors Ashley Tomlinson
Spokane teenager Ashley Tomlinson had dinner in New York City last night with feminist and Ms. magazine founder Gloria Steinem.
Tonight, she is being honored at the Ms. Foundation’s 19th-annual Gloria Award ceremonies, receiving the national Marie C. Wilson Young Women’s Leadership Award.
The award honors Tomlinson for personal courage in the face of tremendous challenges and for “reminding us that changing our communities begins with changing ourselves,” according to the Ms Foundation.
The 16-year-old has come a long way for this award.
Eighteen months ago, Tomlinson walked into the Odyssey Youth Center in Spokane as a homeless high school dropout and drug user with a Mohawk hairdo who was actively cutting herself in acts of self-mutilation.
In those days, she was couch surfing (staying with one friend or another as she could), when one friend asked if she wanted to go to Odyssey, a center for gay, lesbian and bisexual teens.
“Do I have to be gay to go?” asked Tomlinson, who identifies herself as bisexual.
At first, she went just to hang out with friends, she admitted, but then she got caught up in the positive image-building that goes on at Odyssey.
However, it was during Odyssey’s trip to Olympia last year for Lobby Day, when legislators sat and listened to what she had to say about comprehensive sexuality education, that Tomlinson learned something that transformed her.
“I have power to do something positive,” she said. “I have power to effect change. But to do that, I knew I first had to change myself, to get my life together.”
When Tomlinson returned to Spokane, she approached her stepfather, Ed Concie. She asked if she could return to his home and asked him to make rules and hold her accountable. He agreed.
And she threw herself into the program at Odyssey, which she calls her second home – participating fully, volunteering and now working as a paid intern leading Odyssey Out Loud, a grass-roots training program.
She enrolled in Spokane Public Schools’ alternative MAP school and went from all F’s (her grades when she left 10th grade) to all A’s now. She quit drugs, including methamphetamine and cocaine, and has been clean for a year, she said proudly. And she stopped cutting herself.
She is on course to graduate from high school on time next year.
Tomlinson, who has been diagnosed bipolar disorder, credits Odyssey with saving her life, and she made a quilt for the organization as a thank-you. It hangs in the Odyssey living room for all to see.
“We don’t judge,” said Ramon Alvarez, Odyssey executive director. “We just take kids in and do our thing.
“Ashley realized the life she was leading was not good for her, that she was not safe. It was her self-awareness and her initiative that made this happen,” Alvarez said.
Still, Tomlinson just sees herself now as a normal teenager who fights to get good grades, copes with curfews and has relationship problems and all that comes with being 16.
“I’m just fortunate in getting recognized,” she said. “What I’ve done, lots of other people have done, too. They’ve just not gotten public notice for it.”
Alvarez, however, sees Tomlinson’s motivation and success in transforming herself and now helping others as something quite special, which is why he and the Odyssey staff and volunteers nominated her for the Ms. award.
“We are very proud of her and are inspired by what people can do when they discover their own power for change,” Alvarez said.
While Tomlinson no longer sports a Mohawk, she does retain her pink and black hair, even as she receives her award in New York City tonight.
“You know, I’ve earned this award by being myself, so I’m not going to change my hair color,” Tomlinson said. “This is me right now.
“And, yes, I am proud of myself.”