04/17/2026
🫶True Story🫶
I, Taylor Schoonover, started this group after my grandpa passed away in February of 2025. His last words to me were, “You’re gonna do great things, sweetie.” At the time, I didn’t fully understand what he meant. I was grieving, confused, and honestly just trying to get through each day.
Looking back now… he saw something in me that I couldn’t see in myself yet.
He knew my past. He knew about the bullying, the family struggles, and the way my faith had been shaken. He knew how many nights I cried, how many mornings I didn’t want to get out of bed, and how hard it was for me to just exist in certain moments. But what he meant was this — that one day I would take everything I went through and turn it into something bigger. That I would become someone other kids could go to when they feel alone, scared, or lost.
It just took me time to understand it.
One day, I was talking with Laura Sanford about Y2Y here in Mercer County something I had been a part of for four years. I told laura I wanted to start something of my own something for younger kids who might be going through what I went through, but maybe don’t have anyone to turn to yet.
She was so excited for me… honestly, I think she was speechless. Laura has known me since I was about 11 years old, and she knows parts of my story that not everyone does.
She knows I was bullied so badly that I was spit on, tripped in the halls, laughed at, and talked about constantly. She knows there were days I would walk into school already anxious, already on edge, just waiting for something to happen. I was even put on a death list at one point something no kid should ever have to experience or carry with them.
She knew about things happening at home, the struggles with my dad, and how that added even more weight onto everything I was already dealing with. She knew about the times kids went as far as writing things in my yard with toilet paper pieces, just to humiliate me even more.
And what a lot of people don’t know… is how much I struggled mentally in 2023. There was a point in my life where I felt so low, so exhausted, and so overwhelmed that I didn’t even want to be here anymore.
But something stopped me.
That something was my biggest supporter — my mom.
My mom saw what was happening, even when I tried to hide it. She listened when I didn’t have the words. She fought for me when I didn’t have the strength to fight for myself. And when I say she sacrificed everything to get me into a better school, I mean everything. She made one of the hardest decisions a parent can make, just to give me a chance at a better life.
At the time, though, I was angry. I was angry at God. I didn’t understand why I had to go through so much — why it felt like every time I got through one thing, something else would hit me. It felt like battle after battle, fight after fight, with no break in between.
Getting up in the morning was hard. Going to school was hard. Sitting alone at lunch was hard. Wondering if people were talking about me, laughing at me, or planning something was hard. Being around toxic people and situations every single day was exhausting.
People don’t truly understand how hard it is to just show up every day when you’re living in that kind of environment… until they’ve lived it themselves.
When my mom told the school I was switching, I remember being looked at differently by some staff. I remember being told, “Taylor, remember… the grass isn’t always greener.” That stuck with me.
But I can tell you right now — leaving that school was one of the biggest blessings of my life.
When I got to my new school, everything felt different. For the first time in a long time, I felt welcomed. I felt seen. I felt like people actually cared about who I was, not just what they had heard about me. I wasn’t just surviving anymore — I was finally starting to live again.
I started rebuilding myself. I started finding confidence again. I started discovering who I truly was and who I wanted to be.
So thank you — truly — to the Fort Recovery community for giving me that chance.
And now here I am.
I took everything I went through — the pain, the hurt, the loneliness, the anger — and I turned it into something bigger than myself.
Support Squad was created to be the place I wish I had when I was struggling. A place where kids can come and feel safe. A place where they can make friends, be heard, and know they are not alone. A place where they don’t have to pretend they’re okay when they’re not.
Because I know what it feels like to sit in that seat.
And if I can be even one person’s reason to keep going… then I know I’m doing exactly what my grandpa saw in me all along.
