Harvest Scholarship for Women Dreamers

My “pie in the sky” dream is simple to say but enormous in impact: I want to build a therapeutic, family-style living program for teenage girls on my future farm in Arkansas—where I will be both their house mother and their bilingual therapist. It is the kind of dream that feels bigger than money, bigger than degrees, bigger than timelines. It feels like something God whispered to me long before I had the strength to believe I could ever do it. This dream was born from the ache of my own childhood. I grew up motherless, biracial, and learning how to survive emotional hunger before I ever learned how to ride a bike. I know what it’s like to crave guidance, softness, and stability. I know what it’s like to wish someone would simply choose you and mean it. Losing my father—my only parent—cemented that ache into a calling. I became an orphan at an age when most people still have someone to run home to. So I decided: No girl in my care will ever feel as alone as I did. That is the spark. The dream is to create a place where teenage girls—especially girls in Arkansas foster care—can heal, grow, feel seen, and experience what “family” can be. I want chickens, donkeys, open land, a long dinner table, evening devotionals, therapeutic sessions that feel like safety instead of punishment, and a home where every girl feels chosen. Not for a night. Not for a placement. Chosen because she is loved. To get there, I need education, and that’s why I returned to college. This is my second attempt at higher education. The first time, I had to drop out—my father’s health was failing, I became a mother, and my life shifted into survival mode. But when God says “go,” you go. And He told me it’s time to return, not for myself but for the girls He’s calling me to help. I recently got accepted into the University of Arkansas – Fayetteville, where I will study psychology and work toward becoming a bilingual therapist. My goal is to continue into graduate school and gain every credential I need to legally care for and treat these girls with excellence, not just love. But education is only one step. Here is the roadmap I’m building: • Step 1: Earn my degree as a single mother of four daughters—two biological, two adopted foster teens—so they can watch me walk across that stage. • Step 2: Gain clinical experience working with teen girls in group homes and foster settings. • Step 3: Secure land in Arkansas to begin building my nonprofit. • Step 4: Create a program blending therapy, spiritual support, and homestead living. • Step 5: Take girls who feel abandoned and show them that they were never forgotten by God. This dream feels big, sometimes impossibly big—but it also feels holy. It is far, yes, but not unreachable. Because every step I am taking, every class I enroll in, every scholarship I apply for is one foot closer to the farm, the girls, the healing, and the home waiting at the end of this road. Some dreams are fragile. Mine is rooted. And with God’s help, I will harvest every piece of it.