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The coat closet in the Brady home is maybe two feet deep and three feet wide. The ceiling slopes down at the back, cutting into its usable space.<\/p>\n
But Briana Brady, her 17-year-old brother, 15-year-old sister, mother and father crammed themselves into it just before the Easter tornado tore through their neighborhood, located just east of Hamilton Place.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy Dad hadn\u2019t even gotten the door closed,\u201d said Brady, an\u00a0Innovations in Honors Scholar in the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga Honors College. \u201cWe all heard some major noise. They say it sounds like a train and it really does.\u201d<\/p>\n
Everyone in her family lived with no injuries so, naturally, still being alive was\u00a0the best news Brady has had in, well, her entire life.<\/p>\n
But in what might be considered a small bite of dessert, she found out two weeks after the tornado that she is a 2020 recipient of the Harold Love Outstanding Community Service Award. Each year, five people from across the state are honored for their outstanding social work in cities with universities and colleges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was absolutely humbled and honored,\u201d said\u00a0 Brady, who graduates in May 2021 with a degree in political science said. But she admitted that she had an inkling that something was going on when Honors College higher-ups asked her a couple of times if she could give them a photo of herself.<\/p>\n
\u201cBriana is very smart, very knowledgeable and very, very committed to the causes about which she cares,\u201d said Honors College Dean Linda Frost. \u201cShe is multi-talented, kind, whip-smart, and solely devoted to social justice particularly as it appears\u2014or doesn\u2019t\u2014in our educational systems.<\/p>\n
\u201cShe right now is a change agent and I am thrilled that she has been awarded the Harold Love Award. I\u2019ve known very few students who deserve it more than she.\u201d<\/p>\n
UTC Assistant Professor of Nursing Priscilla Simms-Roberson also was a 2020 winner of a statewide Harold Love Outstanding Community Service Award.<\/p>\n
The run-up to the Harold Love Award began many years ago for Brady when, as a student at Chattanooga\u2019s Baylor School, she began spending afternoons at the city\u2019s Carver Youth and Westside Family Development Centers where, among other tasks, she still helps with the kids\u2019 homework, plays games with them and tries to make sure their families meet their daily food needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be my eighth year, so I\u2019ve watched these kids grow up and have known their families for a long time,\u201d Brady said.<\/p>\n
After graduating from the Baylor School in 2017, she attended Smith College in western Massachusetts for a year.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile it was wonderful academically, it wasn\u2019t the right social fit for me, and I missed my involvements outside of the campus and classroom,\u201d she explained. \u201cComing back to UTC allowed me to continue my education in an environment I felt more comfortable in, while enabling me to continue my daily opportunity to spend each afternoon at Carver with friends in the community.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Harold Love Award comes with a $1,000 prize, which she said she wants to take back to some of the families with whom she\u2019s worked at the Chattanooga family centers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis summer I\u2019m going to think\u00a0 how to do that. It might be trying to provide mental health services for children and fund their therapy, if needed,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
After graduating from UTC, Brady said she plans to pursue a master\u2019s and Ph.D. with the ultimate goal of a career in \u201ca think-tank environment, some sort of political realm, crafting policy for urban school environments.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d be trying to work on school discipline and how those practices can be improved through more restorative justice efforts and trying to teach children and their teachers ways in which communication, rather than discipline and punishment, can be an even more effective way of learning,\u201d she explained.<\/p>\n
Back at\u00a0 home, while her family survived the tornado without injury, their house has some serious wounds but is mostly intact; however,\u00a0a tree crushed her car. Their neighborhood, though, is a blast zone.<\/p>\n
Crumpled and torn-off roofs. Naked, leafless trees, at least the ones still standing. Towering piles of rubble in all shapes and sizes. RVs tossed into homes. Entire houses leaning 45 degrees to one side.<\/p>\n
Even after the tornado roared through, Brady was still scared.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was terrified afterwards because we had no idea what was coming. We had no cell service; we had no internet; we had no power. We didn\u2019t know if there was another one coming.<\/p>\n
“I told my sister, \u2018I can\u2019t do this again tonight. I can\u2019t go through that again.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
But Brady has been through so much and given so much, it seems like she can stand up to anything.<\/p>\n
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Briana Brady is one of five people across Tennessee who received the 2020 Harold Love Outstanding Community Service Award.<\/p>\n