Brewed Fresh Daily

I’m Sarah Alvarez, and I’m new to the Changing Gears team.

Changing Gears is becoming part of the Public Insight Network, a database of volunteer sources who help us hear from people directly impacted by developments in their communities. In the coming weeks, I’ll be asking you to join the network. We’ll post your comments, contact you to become a source, and listen to your ideas for new stories.

I know everyone has a story. So tell me how life in the Midwest is changing for you – and help Changing Gears cover it.

Public Insight journalist Sarah Alvarez

I first came to Michigan when I was 13, moving from New Mexico to Laingsburg, a small agricultural community between Lansing and Flint. When I went to high school there, Future Farmers of America was the biggest club in the school. Our chemistry lab was used more for preparing the club’s chickens for sale than chemistry class. It’s changed since then. Farming is a hard business, and Laingsburg is close enough to the Lansing and Flint areas to attract people looking for a great place to live close to work, but out of the city.

I went to the University of Michigan for college and left the state to go to law school at Columbia University in New York City. I lived and worked in New York for about seven years. I do love New York, but we didn’t want to stay there because it’s hard and really expensive to raise a family.

We found our way back to Michigan in 2010 after three more years in Oakland, California. Most people in the Bay Area think it is Heaven on earth, but I wanted to get back to Michigan. I missed it. When I would come home, my husband and I would talk about being able to feel the energy people were putting into starting something new and just figuring out how to make it work.

I decided I wanted to start over too. I was determined to use my legal background to help me do something I actually like. We used our savings and I became an unpaid intern in the Michigan Radio newsroom. I tried not to think too much about having only enough money to cover a few months of expenses and daycare. I learned everything I could and patched together any paying work I could find. But I did it, I’m working as a journalist now.

There are so many of us making leaps we never thought we would. Many of us have to, and some of us want to. These stories of personal and regional reinvention have infinite variations. All of them are better when there are more voices in the conversation.

I can’t wait to hear from you. I’ll be on the website, on twitter @SarahAlvarezMI, and you’ll hear about how to add to our stories in the coming weeks.