Woman Wednesday: Cassidy Leyendecker

Meet Cassidy. When she's not screaming FlyEaglesFly she's working her butt off in LA, first as an NBC page, but now for a production company. She's done what so many of us wish we could do, just start fresh and make it work. PS, she also lived with me through the great ceiling collapse of Walsh Hall.

"I come from a long line of independent badass women. My great-grandmother divorced her abusive husband in the 40s way before it was socially acceptable for a woman to be a single mother. After my grandfather passed away over 20 years ago, my grandmother took over her husband’s finances, raised my aunt who is mentally handicapped alone, and became the leader of the family. My mother works everyday with disenfranchised teenagers struggling with mental illness, drug addiction, pregnancy, and violence while balancing a blended family with my stepfather.

I learned from an early age what it means to be strong and independent. It’s part of why five days after graduating college, I moved 2,700 miles away from my family and friends to follow my dreams of making it in the entertainment industry. There’s been times where I felt depressed, alone, and honestly lost. But the memory of everything the women in my family had endured to persist kept me going. Now, a year later I’m starting an amazing job for a production company that truly believes in telling stories much like my mother’s and grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s, the real dream.

For the longest time, I equated strength with going it alone. Independence was the most vital thing for me. But this past year has taught me that success doesn’t happen in a vacuum. And while strength does come from within it is impossible without those around you to prop you up. Whether it’s my friends or coworkers or more likely my mother and grandmother, I’ve been blessed with people around me who gave me strength when I thought I had none. My story is just as much theirs and the true strength is in numbers."