10/11/2026
My past is still part of my story, but it no longer gets to write the ending.”
One woman’s story of recovery, motherhood, and building a future with FCS employment services beside her. Shared in her own words.
When I first met Nikki Marcano and Bexx Geleide, I was newly sober, pregnant with my son Cole, and preparing to serve a scheduled prison sentence. I was living in a small shack in Nikiski, Alaska, with no family and very little support just a new faith, a new life in recovery, and a baby on the way who gave me every reason in the world to keep moving forward. I wasn't without potential.
Before addiction changed the course of my life, I had earned an associate degree in paralegal studies and built experience in accounting, bookkeeping, and other professional positions that gave me a résumé I was proud of. But coming home with a criminal record in a small community where it felt like everyone knew my past made rebuilding seem almost impossible. I had the skills and the determination, what I desperately needed was someone willing to see beyond where I had been and help me find a way toward where I was trying to go. I found that in Nikki Marcano, Rebecca "Bexx" Geleide, the IPS employment program, and Frontier Community Services.
Nikki and Bexx did not simply help me look for a job they stood beside me while I rebuilt a life. There were countless hours of support along the way: helping me secure stable housing, health care and food assistance; helping keep my electricity on; making sure I had a working phone and service so employers could reach me; helping with interview clothing; and being there through the late-night and early-morning phone calls when I needed to talk through every tiny detail before or after an interview.
Nikki listened when I vented, answered questions when I doubted myself, celebrated the victories, and continued showing up through the challenges that came after I became employed. Finding a job wasn't treated as the finish line. When real life followed me through the doors of the workplace, (as real life always does) Nikki and the IPS team stayed beside me. Their support gave me the stability and confidence to keep showing up until, little by little, I wasn't simply rebuilding anymore. I was building something new.
Today, I work at at a local screen-printing shop in Soldotna, where I run and operate the embroidery department alongside a team I believe in and that believes in me.
My quality of life is almost unrecognizable compared with the life I was living when Nikki first met me. I am a mother, a professional, a coworker, a person in recovery, and someone trusted with responsibility and I have a future that once felt impossibly far away.
I did the walking, but Nikki, Bexx, the IPS program, and Frontier Community Services made sure I didn't have to walk alone. They helped give me the tools, opportunities, stability, and support I needed long enough for me to begin seeing in myself what they had apparently seen all along.
My past is still part of my story, but it no longer gets to write the ending. Today, when I look at how far I've come, I don't see the woman in that little shack wondering whether the world would ever give her another chance. I see the woman she was fighting to become.
Chelsey Payne thank you mama for allowing me to share.
