Editor’s note: Deon Chaneyfield is one of the 18 students in the Washtenaw Intermediate School District’s Ypsilanti Transition Services program at Eastern Michigan University, located in the Porter Building.
Deon lives in Ypsilanti, has two part-time jobs and hopes to one day have his own apartment. He also dreams of one day becoming a cook or a graphic designer.
Hello EMU—
I’m a 25-year-old man and my life is about being through so much. I am finally getting out there and really trying to get to know Eastern students. Getting comfortable with people is hard to really know a person. I feel like I’m going to get judged by people, and I’m just letting people know that is not good to judge other people by their disability when you don’t know what they go through in life.
If you want to get to know someone, just come up to them and start a good conversation. If you would just talk to me you would get to know me and have a fair relationship with me.
Nobody should call people a name like “too big” or think you don’t know how to do this or how to comprehend right. You don’t have to be ashamed for who you are. Don’t be ashamed to talk to me because I’m a human being just like you are. The more we get to talk to each other, the more I get used to hanging with you and talking to you. I have always been by myself. I would be afraid to talk to people because I don’t know how they feel about me.
In my high school years I never did any activities. I went to assemblies but I never ever went to prom. I always wanted to go to prom but I couldn’t because I did not find that right girl to go with, so I said it wasn’t for me. So basically I was on the sidelines and I think that was so messed up.
I feel like now I am making new friends already, especially the Best Buddies. Because at first I wasn’t feeling the friendship, but now I feel like I am. The reason I thought about this story is because it was basically about my life and putting my business here on campus—about me and the things I went through in my life.
I want other people to feel the same way I feel—that people need to put their story out there like in a newspaper.
I’m a guy from Ypsilanti, Mich. I never thought I would be here at EMU. I thought I wasn’t going to have any friends to look up on, but now I have opportunities. I thought I was just going to be in the street not doing anything with my life. Now I got two jobs.
Now I am ready for basically just to see life and not leave EMU. I’m ready to be out there in the real world.
And if anybody wants to talk to me, feel free to do that. If anybody wants to know about my life, feel free to talk to me. I am a friendly guy. Don’t be afraid to talk to a guy like me. I will not bite. I’m just reaching out and trying to reach other people’s hearts. This is a true story.
Deon Chaneyfield, WISD/EMU student and EMU Best Buddy
