Hello, and welcome to my story! My name is Andrea, and I haven't had the easiest go of things in this life. I've been through addiction at a very young age, homelessness for a time, and then eventually single motherhood as well. It was a challenge to find the ability to do any college classes for a while, but I thankfully had the support of my family, who took myself and my son in, and helped me with childcare while I worked and attended some in person and some online classes at the Communuty College of Aurora. From there I had to decide what school was right for me and I settled on Columbia College, which is based out of Missouri, but has a small campus here in Colorado where I live. I enrolled for online classes immediately and set to work figuring out how to balance a busy mom, employee, and current schedule! Fast forward a couple of years and now, I am nearing the end of my bachelors degree in Human Services, and will be graduating in December! Throughout my school experience, I have had to work hard, as the first 3 years I was a single mother needing to make ends meet. Now, I am working in my local school district in the field I hope to advance in once my schooling is finished; special education. I have a passion for improving the lives of kids and helping those who others cast aside. I have found a love for learning and a love for teaching that feels so strongly I would be silly to deny the calling to teach. But I have one problem, I have hit the maximum for federal student aid and have found my self struggling to finish the payments for school so that I can graduate and move onto grad school. Thus, here I am searching for scholarships that are right for me, and that can help me with my last few classes so that I can make a difference in children's lives in an even more meaningful way! I currently work full time as a special education technician. I am a mom and now a wife as well. On top of this, I have full time college online where I carry a 3.8 GPA! I am dedicated to learning and finishing this degree and I really need your help! Thank you for your consideration.

When I was younger, I had big dreams about how I was going to help people. Dreams about making a difference in the world, and leaving it better than I found it. And for a while, that was a bright spot in my life. But as I entered my teenage years, that light started to fade. I learned more about the world, and all the challenges I would likely face, and something in me changed. There has always been a history of mental health struggles, and depression in my family, but I didn't think it would happen to me. Until around 13, when j first started feeling hopeless, sad, unmotivated, dumb, ugly, and anxious all the time. Before I knew how to understand what was happening to me, I began to engage in self-harm. Thinking it would make me feel better, but it didn't. I eventually went to my mom and opened up about how I was feeling. Therapy helped sometimes, but I never felt like I could fully explain how I was feeling. I felt ashamed of myself for being so sad when there were others who struggled with much more than me. A few years later, i got a pretty severe concussion, and the doctor gave me some pain pills that I'd never had before. I remember the feeling so distinctly, and it awake something in me that had run through generations of my family. The monster that is addiction. Once in high school I started experimenting with other kinds of drugs, and by the time I graduated, I had fallen into a dangerous place with my addiction. I started college at 18, but wasn't sure what I wanted to do anymore, and so I skipped classes a lot to get high. Not understanding the weight of that decision, and what it would mean for my future. All I knew was that getting high took all the pain away, both emotional and physical. At 19 I was kicked out of school, but not before racking up nearly 15,000 dollars in student loans first. My depression and anxiety had gotten worse along with my drug use. And for a few years I was homeless and struggling to find a way to get clean. Then I found out that I was pregnant, and my parents helped me go to rehab. I managed to stay clean and deliver a healthy baby boy. He is now 6, soon to be 7 and the absolute light of my life! I have 7 and a half years clean and sober! I earned an associates degree, and am on my way to earning a bachelor's. There's only one problem, with only 3 classes left in the 26/27 school year, I have been told that I've run out of federal student loan money. And I can't pay out of pocket, even with a full time job. So I've begun to look for scholarships that can understand what I have been through in my life, and how hard I have worked to get here. I refuse to give up, and the help of this scholarship will help me finish this bachelors degree and move on to reach my goal I had as a child. To grow up and make a difference in the world. To help people. Please help me do that. Thank you for your consideration.