Five Keys first stop on lifetime dream to be a nurse
For Ileah Ruffinelli-Tatum of Lancaster, CA, Five Keys is a family affair.
Growing up in South Central Los Angeles as one of 10 kids, she and her siblings didn’t have the opportunity to finish high school. But now, at 30, she’s a semester away from getting her diploma in December 2020, right behind her sister who graduated in March, and two of her brothers who are working and attending Five Keys.
Her study buddies: daughters AJ’Sha, 12, and La’Ryah, 10, who are super excited about their mom’s plans to transition from working in a nail salon and her dad’s construction company to her dream since she was 10 to become a nurse.
“My girls are very supportful of me and we all do our homework/classwork together at the table,” she says. “Some days I do get discouraged, or overwhelmed and my daughters along with my husband, parents, and siblings, quickly remind me to stop over thinking, stop being lazy and finish. They tell me I have greatness in me and they believe in me. My daughters say the very same encouragement that I give them daily and it always bring tears to my eyes and my heart starts to flutter.”
Since she was a child helping to care for her grandmother who had Alzheimer’s, Ileah has wanted to become a nurse.
But an abusive marriage, and the pursuit of many gigs to support her children – stylist in a nail and hair salon, massage therapist, car mechanic, seamstress, painter and construction work for her father’s business — showcased her myriad talents and made her a jack of all trades, but never fulfilled her yearning to pursue a nursing career.
Remarried and hoping to be a strong role model for her daughters, just as her parents and grandmother were for her, she says she feels blessed that her daughters and new husband are championing her full-time enrollment in Five Keys.
“I started caring for people at the very young age of 11 when I helped my mother take care of my grandmother, feeding her, cleaning and changing her, anything you can think of we did it,” she says. “We had help from my great aunt and siblings — even my dad. Also, I helped my ex father-in-law before he passed away. He was on dialysis — both legs from the knees down amputated and had many other medical conditions.”
At one point she worked in an assisted living facility for the elderly, but had to leave due to some of her own medical issues at the time.
“Five keys helped my siblings and myself gain our confidence back that we can have a second chance in life,” she says. “We can gain our diplomas and still be able to pursue a career, and not just get a low paying job just to get by. We all have children and it helps us to tell our stories and they can watch us firsthand, how we all detoured but still found our way back to the starting point but is now able and have crossed the finish line.”
She says an acquaintance told her about the program.
“I'm so grateful because I struggled for years trying to work and go to school,” she says. “I never found the right school for me but Five Keys is. I would recommend Five Keys to anyone who wants to make a step to bettering their life or just to have that closure that you finished something they started. It’s crazy that a piece of paper validates a person's life. But it is all worth it in the end. It's never how you start but it's all about how you finish.”