BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Western New Yorkers have dealt with a lot of heartache and trauma over the last two years. Perhaps the people who've felt it most are living on Buffalo's east side.
Between a deadly snow storm and a hate-fueled mass shooting, there are people who are helping to ease the pain and bring about a brighter future for this neighborhood.
Trinetta Alston is one of those people. She wears many hats in this neighborhood. She is a community nurse with the Community Health Center of Buffalo. She is constantly on the move to make this a better place.
But before she could help others, she had to help herself.
She spoke with 7 News anchor Ed Drantch, who is highlighting the people making positive change in Buffalo.
Alston has worked with the Community Health Center of Buffalo for 12 years. She's a mom of four, grandmother of three and "a friend to many."
She says there is such a need in her community. "I don't sleep [at the health center]," Alston said. "I should though."
"I had a drug addiction. Crack-cocaine was my drug of choice. I had that addiction for 14 years," Alston admits. She was homeless for four years. The last four months she was homeless, she found out she was pregnant. She was in denial.
She went to a shelter to get clean and then moved into an apartment.
"I kind of tested myself," Alston says. "My thinking was, if I can stay there and not get high, because I knew the people, then I'm good. And I did it."
She realized this was her moment to turn her life around. She became an LPN — a licensed practical nurse.
7 News anchor Ed Drantch asked, "what is that like, being able to give back to the people who've helped you?"
Alston says, "It comes full circle for me because this is what I asked God for...to give back the love that was given to me. In my time of being homeless, I never slept on the street. I never worried about what I was going to eat, so you have to pay that forward."
Nursing is the only place you can do that, Alston says. "I'm able to touch people I would not otherwise be able to touch. I couldn't ask for anything more."
But on May 14, 2022, when a racist came to Buffalo, shooting and killing ten black people at Tops, Nurse T's mission became that much more important.
"We're still here. That's all we have is each other," Alston says. "We're not going to let something like that stop us."
She says we need to look beyond being in front of a camera and really look at what needs to be done to build this community back up.
"I go into Tops — sometimes four times a week— just to talk to them...just to go," Trinetta said. "Whatever I can do to link you to what you need to be linked to, that's what I'm going to do. My job is not a 9-5...I'm on call."
Alston says the PTSD is just setting in for people who live in the community around Tops. "Let's stop dwelling on what happened and let's get a plan on how to move forward for them. Anybody African-American walking around the streets of Buffalo, we all were impacted by it, directly or indirectly."
"You have the Black Lives Matter...all lives matter," Alston says. "Doesn't matter what color you are, the fact is if I cut you and you cut me, we're going to bleed the same color."
But Alston believes she's busting stereotypes, especially with her children.
"They deserve to have dreams... a goal. My son wants to work in cyber security. Why shouldn't he," Alston questioned. "When he was looking at colleges, I took him on the tours. He said 'Mom, I want to go to St. Bonaventure because that's where I felt most at home.' I said 'okay' but when I got in my bedroom, I hit the floor!"
She questioned how she was going to afford her son's education, but said they're making it work. "There are ways out here that will help you go to school," Trinetta said.
"Don't ever limit yourself. I don't put limits or a cap on myself so I'm not going to put a limit or a cap on my kid... but watch for him," she said. "It's that work ethic that we have to instill and if we can do that, we can break that generational curse that we have."
People in government, she says, shouldn't want people in their community to struggle. "My children are mine, but they're also the community's," Alston said. "We have a right to be wherever we want to be and do whatever we want to do, if we work for it, we have that right."
Alston says she can't change the whole world. But she says, "I can put the footprints in the sand."
