LONG BEACH >> It’s easy to get Aaron Green to smile. Just ask him about adversity.
The 23-year-old Cal State Long Beach student is finishing his degree in sociology this semester after entering foster care at 2 days old, growing up in Compton, coping with sickle cell anemia, adjusting to hearing loss in one ear, losing his foster mother at age 16 and sometimes living out of his car while attending college.
Video: Aaron Green in his own words
“I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me,” Green says, quoting Philippians 4:13 from the Bible, while standing outside the Walter Pyramid, where he has served as a team manager to the basketball players during his time at CSULB.
He smiles wide while clouds turn away from the blinding sun as a passing storm gives way to light.
The Bible verse is the first thing he thinks of after waking up each day, along with his foster mother, Annie Hartford, who also provided strength and encouragement to Green before she succumbed to liver cancer when he was in high school.
It was Hartford who fostered Green just out of the hospital, taking him into her home, along with two grandchildren and another foster child.
“Without her raising me like the man I am today, I probably would never see this day, because growing up in Compton, the odds (were) against us,” Green says. “We’re not supposed to go to college, you know? She helped me push through it and raised me into this positive person I am.”
Green never saw himself as a bad luck kid. At least he had a loving mother. The “telephone game” in second grade, when he discovered he couldn’t hear normally, like the other kids? Not that big of a deal. He got a hearing aid.
He does regret not being able to play sports because of his sickle cell anemia, a genetic blood disorder that causes the protein in red blood cells, which transports oxygen to the body, to develop abnormally.
But he did play flag football when he was a teenager. And the drums. He smiles.
“I never thought I would be able to see this day, graduating, having a college degree, because I had all the odds against me,” he says. “No family, sometimes not a place to live. It’s been a bumpy road.”
A kid like that
A graduate of Bellflower High School, Green entered CSULB through its Summer Bridge Program, a four-week workshop on college life where students can also brush up coursework in math and English.
“His growth has been phenomenal,” says Andy Espinoza, director of the campus Educational Opportunity Program, which assists low-income and first-generation college students through support services and retention programs. “One of the things I like about him is he’s got really strong critical thinking skills … but he also knows himself. You don’t find that in a lot of kids.”
Like a lot people on campus, Espinoza learns about Green’s struggles in sound bites — only the things he shares when pushed.
Green doesn’t see himself as a victim. When he wasn’t able to live in the dorms, he slept in his 1989 Jeep Wagoneer, before upgrading to a 2006 Chevrolet Impala he bought at auction. Green parked on campus. When the library or Starbucks closed, he’d still hit the books. In his car. Using the campus Wi-Fi.
“Every advantage I had to study, I took it,” he says.
Espinoza was shocked when he found out Green was living in his car, or dorm-hopping with friends and grabbing sleep while riding trains, he says. Green once volunteered for a kids summer camp at UCLA, eating one meal a day while getting on a bus at 4:28 a.m. and arriving to the Westwood campus at 7:26 a.m. Then getting “home” late at night.
EOP was able to loan him some money for campus housing. Green was also able to work for EOP as a front desk assistant, earning $8 an hour to help pay for school, which has been covered by loans and financial aid.
“You want a kid like that to do well, and it’s emotional because you know what he’s going through, yet he’s not telling you,” Espinoza says.
Dan Monson, coach of the 49ers men’s basketball team, has shared similar experiences with Green, who occasionally asked if he could sleep in the locker room. Green started serving as a team manager at the encouragement of T.J. Robinson and Casper Ware, two former 49er players.
“He’s a great kid and it’s one of those situations where you find yourself trying to help somebody, and really, just their story and what they’ve been through helps you more than them,” Monson says. “He’s inspiring … here’s somebody, you never know how little he has, unless you know his story. It’s not one he tells.”
One time, Monson asked Green why he was only coming to practice a couple times week. That’s when Green told him he was going to treatments for sickle cell anemia.
“He’s just somebody who has survived because he’s a good person and motivated to be educated and believes in something better for his life,” Monson says.
Keep them positive
Green has found a family in the 49ers. Coach Monson is a father figure. Espinoza is one of his heroes.
He’s come through some difficult times, saying he’s cried privately at the stress of school, but always mustered up the strength to pull through. He once considered taking a semester off. Then he ran into a former 49er who told him he actually did take a semester off.
That turned into 10 years, and he’s never been back.
“Every time I think about giving up, I go back to that,” Green says.
He wants to be a social worker.
“I want to give back and help other students in foster care,” he says. “Just keep them positive, because I know what they’re going through.”
Green is applying for jobs and hopes to get a studio apartment. He says his mother would be proud if she were still alive and saw him walk to get his degree. He smiles.
“I did it by myself, with all the odds against me,” he says. “So nobody can say they can’t do anything.”
Contact Josh Dulaney at 562-714-2150.
