Reva Dillard, 18, was born in Gaffney and has lived at Leaphart Place since January 2009. She is hoping to find a job in retail so she can get started on her young life. She lived in foster homes for two years before signing herself out this year to move to Leaphart Place.  

“It took me a long time to decide whether to move here. … I want to be here long enough to get on my feet and get things, you know, a job, a car and stuff like that. I don’t want to move out too fast … but I don’t want to be here forever.”

Reva is a graduate of Spartanburg High School and attended Greenville Technical College before moving to Leaphart. She says she had not decided on a major, but when she was younger, she wanted to be a writer.

“I used to keep journals all the time. But it kind of fell off because I used to put all my tragic events and stuff that happened in my books. … I learned that when I write them down, that’s when I remember them. If I don’t write them down, I forget a lot of stuff, bad stuff that happened in my past, so I don’t write them down anymore.”

The job hunt is going slow, in part because of the economy, but also because Reva has never had a real job. She is getting training at the Vocational Rehabilitation Department and has applied for work at several retailers, including Wal-Mart and Blockbuster Video.

Most of her family and friends still live in the Upstate and she doesn’t get to see them often.

“The only thing that I have a problem with is I don’t really have family here. … It just gets lonely. I’m out of my comfort zone.”

Reva would like to get out more. “I just like to hang out and go places. I love going places.”