Abigail O. Adewunmi Memorial Scholarship

I keep thinking about what it must have been like to be known as “Miss No Stress.” In a world that feels so fast and overwhelming sometimes, that kind of peace is rare and beautiful. Reading about Abigail made me pause and ask myself, how do I want to move through life, especially when things are hard? Like her, I want my life to be rooted in faith, guided by purpose, and meaningful in the way I serve others. As I prepare to graduate from Northview High School, I’m excited to continue my education on a pre-health track, with the goal of eventually becoming a Physician Assistant. Throughout high school, I’ve been drawn to healthcare not just because of the science behind it, but because of the human connection it requires. I want to be someone who can bring both skill and compassion into spaces where people are often at their most vulnerable. In college, I plan to major in a STEM related field while continuing to explore opportunities that allow me to serve, whether through clinical volunteering, medical missions, or community health initiatives. My passion for service really deepened during my medical mission trip to Panama. There, I worked alongside healthcare professionals in rural clinics, helping provide care to over 800 patients. I assisted with intake, triage, and pharmacy operations, but more importantly, I learned how powerful it is to simply show up for people. Even when language barriers existed, kindness and empathy spoke clearly. That experience reminded me that service isn’t always about having all the answers, it’s about being present, willing to care, and being compassionate. Back home, I’ve stayed committed to serving my community through my church’s homeless ministry, where I help package and deliver meals and other essential items in downtown Atlanta. I understand that providing a meal will not end homelessness, but the act of service will hopefully be passed on. Offering prayer and worship hopefully provides something that is not tangible, but rather felt. Week after week, I’ve come to understand that small, consistent acts of service can make a real difference. I’ve also had the opportunity to serve as Co-Leader of a mentoring program at my school, helping freshmen navigate the challenges of high school. Supporting others, whether emotionally, spiritually, or physically, has become a central part of who I am. In college and beyond, I plan to continue this work by combining my passion for healthcare with my commitment to service. I hope to participate in more medical mission trips, volunteer in underserved communities, and eventually use my career as a Physician Assistant to provide accessible, compassionate care. Long term, I would love to work in areas where healthcare disparities are most evident, making sure that people who are often overlooked still receive the care they deserve. Abigail’s story is a reminder that life is both fragile and meaningful. She didn’t get the chance to pursue all of her dreams, but the way she lived with faith, curiosity, and a heart for others, obviously continues to inspire people like me. I want to honor that legacy by not taking my opportunities for granted, by continuing to learn, and by using what I gain to serve others with the same grace and quiet strength she showed. If I can move through life even a little like “Miss No Stress”, grounded in faith, committed to growth, and always looking for ways to uplift others, then I know I’m on the right path.

Service was never something I had to be taught. It was just the water I grew up in. From age twelve I worked in my grandmother's medical office in San Jose, watching her care for patients with the same steadiness whether the day was easy or hard. I learned early that showing up consistently for other people is its own form of devotion. That understanding shaped everything that came after, including four years mentoring middle school students at Holy Family School through the Pyrobotics robotics program, regular volunteering at Martha's Kitchen feeding families in our community, and environmental restoration work with Our City Forest. By the time I graduated, I had well over a hundred hours of community service, not because I was counting, but because I was not thinking about stopping. This fall I will enter the Bioengineering program at the University of California, Berkeley, where I plan to focus on surgical instrumentation and medical device design. My goal is to build tools that give surgeons better real-time information during procedures, devices that detect tremor, measure applied force, and reduce the margin for human error in the operating room. That goal did not come from a textbook. It came from years of being close to medicine and close to people who needed it to work. While I am at Berkeley I plan to get involved in engineering pipeline programs for underrepresented students, particularly young Black women who may not yet see themselves in technical fields. I know what it means to walk into a room and wonder if you belong there. I started putting tools directly in the hands of girls who had that look during my robotics mentoring sessions, not asking first, just expecting them to use them. Several of those students went on to compete at regional tournaments. I want to scale that instinct. I want to find the Berkeley equivalents of those Holy Family sixth graders and do the same thing. Post graduation, I want to work on surgical devices that close the gap between the best medical technology available and the communities that need it most but currently cannot access it. The people who build medical tools are not yet representative of all the patients those tools are meant to serve, and that gap shows up in every stage of the design process. I want to spend my career making that gap smaller, both by what I build and by who I bring into the rooms where those decisions get made. Reading about Abby, I kept returning to one phrase: "Miss No Stress." Not because the challenges were not real, but because she understood something I have been learning my whole life. You can carry hard things without being crushed by them. You can move through difficulty with faith and grace and still show up fully for the people around you. My father died when I was in elementary school. My mother has worked two jobs most of my life to keep our family in our home. My grandfather, a veteran with dementia, now lives with us. I know something about carrying things quietly and still moving forward. Abby believed in celebrating the good in life and walking forward with purpose. That is exactly what I intend to do, for her, for the communities I come from, and for the patients who are waiting for tools that actually work.