For one police officer in Connecticut, childhood instability led to serving others.
The first 15 years of her life have fueled the last 15 years, giving her strength and courage in her job as a police officer for the Hartford police department.
“God picked me because he knew I could handle it,” 36-year-old Noelia Stoor told the Hartford Courant.
Before she even graduated from high school, she had endured mental and sexual abuse, her mother abandoned her, and she became pregnant.
“One of the reasons I became an officer is to show myself and show people that I could do something with myself, regardless of the choices I took, regardless where I was raised,” she told the Courant. “I take that with me: I can’t help everybody, but whoever I can, for me, that’s worth it.”
As part of her duties, Stoor patrols a neighborhood she lived in while growing up. She even helps to protect the multifamily home that she and her family lived in after they moved to Hartford from Puerto Rico in the 1990s, according to the Courant.
Determined to succeed despite the obstacles she faced, she went back to school 10 days after her son was born. After graduating from high school, she took classes in criminal justice at Manchester Community College and worked at KFC, then as a baggage handler for Delta Airlines.
When she was 21, she rented her first apartment. She bought her first home three years later. Even though she and her son’s father broke up when their son was four, she didn’t struggle, according to the Courant.
In the meantime, she contacted Hartford Police Academy. When the Hartford academy returned her call, she enrolled and began her inspirational career serving others.
Read more about how Stoor has helped people, young and old, who daily face the obstacles that she has overcome. Her inspirational story stands in stark contrast to the stories of police brutality that have recently dominated the news. And perhaps her story can motivate others who have suffered childhood instability to serve others, too.
