Students Impacted by Incarceration Scholarship

My name is Karinsa Morgan and incarceration has impacted my life in a major way. I graduated high school in 2004 and shortly after graduating I moved to Florida to pursue my education in Fashion Design. I was not able to finish my degree and had to eventually move back home due to hardship. While back at home, I worked a lot of dead-end jobs to be able to fully take care of myself. I wound up heading in the wrong direction with the wrong people indulging in the wrong things. I got pregnant in 2006 and had my first child while trying to figure out life and what I was going to do with a child. I got into drugs very badly and I decided to sell drugs to make money to provide for my kid. On Friday the 13th of 2012 I got pulled over on the highway by a state trooper and I was booked into jail on a class A felon of Trafficking Cannabis with a million-dollar bond. This day was a transformation in my life and the beginning of my learned experiences. It turned out to be the best day of my life as I was more focused on being a better person and learning how to overcome adversities. I began to dream again and move forward in making my life better for me and my child. It took a while for me to overcome the next steps of my life with dealing with my new charges, paying for my probation, and establishing myself in the community. As I grew I had two more kids and I became even more stable and structured in life and taking care of them. I am now in a position where I have overcome my incarcerated past and I have enrolled back in college to pursue higher learning. I plan to graduate and show my kids, the community, and my sphere of influence that even though we may make a bad decision, we can always change.