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Dec. 31--Tiffanie Stewart's nerves got the best of her as she sat across from Katie Couric in the anchor's New York studio.
Every time Tiffanie giggled, the CBS Evening News crew asked the 17-year-old to start over.
Poised, Tiffanie told Couric her holiday wish: No more tears from her mother's eyes.
This wish, captured on film outside the Salvation Army's women and children's shelter in Orlando, is what landed Stewart on national news.
At the local homeless shelter, Tiffanie was one of 16 children who were asked to participate in a traveling project put on by celebrity photojournalist Linda Solomon. In October, Solomon had armed the children with 27-exposure disposable cameras, promising that their holiday wishes would be made into greeting cards and sold to the public, thanks to the financial backing of General Motors.
The proceeds of their holiday-wish greeting cards went back to the Salvation Army.
Tiffanie's story and picture of "no more pain" was broadcast to the nation this month, after being chronicled in the Orlando Sentinel in November.
"I was so nervous," Tiffanie admits about being in the spotlight.
But even having her face splashed across the news has done little to change her meager lifestyle.
Sure, she and her mom, Velma Sims, and Tiffanie's younger sister Crystal moved out of the shelter into a family member's home. But instead of sharing a room at the Salvation Army, now they reside in a two-bedroom apartment with seven other people. And Tiffanie decided to find an after-school job to help her mother with the bills.
"We're not at the shelter, but we're praying for a place of our own," Sims says.
But they have basked in their 15 minutes of fame, which allowed them their first trip aboard an airplane and their first visit to New York City.
"I was so scared," Tiffanie says of the airplane. "It was fun, though, and it was a new experience."
In the Big Apple, they did a little shopping. And Tiffanie used her new high-end digital camera, a gift from lens maker Tamron and Samsung.
"It was fun, and I'm thankful I met new people," Tiffanie says. "But we're still in the same position."
Adds her mother: "I'm just praying that there's a Bill Gates out there who will help."
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Copyright (c) 2006, The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Business News.
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