My name is Aniyah Reed and I am a recent graduate of Andrean High School, class of 2024. I will be majoring in Nursing, and I will graduate in 2028. My career goal is to become a Pediatric Nurse, which will allow me to contribute to my community by providing adequate medical care. I want to ensure that those who are sick receive adequate medical care and they are treated fairly. I want to be a voice for those who often are not heard and provide a beacon of hope for someone in need. The loss of my grandmother played a big part in my desire to study nursing. She passed away in 2017 from renal failure caused by kidney disease. She was a diabetic and her body simply gave out. The weekly dialysis treatments took their toll and she passed away. I would visit her daily and be her nurse. We would talk and discuss my day and from these interactions, I decided that I wanted to be a nurse. I want to be the healthcare professional that she needed. I want to be a voice to the voiceless and a compassionate heart to those who may need it.  Kidney disease took my loved one from me. It robbed me of having my grandmother here with me during a time when I needed her most. I wanted to honor her legacy. I believe that I could lead by example and serve my community with the best medical care that I am capable of providing. I am a servant leader. As the captain of the cheer team and vice president of the Xinos club, I have participated in community service activities that have benefited the community. I was involved with the local food bank and Senior living facility. I have led and wish to be more impactful by helping the sick. I am committed to making a positive impact on the world through nursing.  In the Bible, Christ commands us to "Love one another, as I have loved you." I believe that Nursing is the calling that allows us to follow through with this commandment. Having a servant's heart and leadership skills demonstrate that I can be impactful. Nurses are bound to show compassion and love for all that come before them. The healthy are called upon to look after the weak in their time of need. The nursing profession is the career choice that will allow me to spread the ministry of Christianity effectively. Kidney disease took my best friend and shook me to my core. However, this horrible disease taught me resilience and determination. The strength that my grandmother demonstrated during that time taught me to never give up. It is my hope and desire to become a nurse to help anyone in this predicament.  I am applying for this scholarship to help me start my journey into nursing. I am trying to take advantage of any opportunity that will aid me in achieving my goals. I need additional financial aid to cover the academic costs associated with serving my community. I appreciate your consideration, and I hope you can help me pursue a profession in nursing. Nursing is my passion, and I have a clear plan to turn that passion into a lifelong career.

My name is Aniyah Reed and I am a freshman at Marian University. I am majoring in Nursing, and I will graduate in 2028. My career goal is to become a Pediatric Nurse, which will allow me to contribute to my community by providing adequate medical care. I want to ensure that those who are sick receive appropriate care and are treated fairly. I want to be a voice for those who often are not heard and provide a beacon of hope for someone. I come from a town where the sick are sometimes not heard and have to go to other hospitals to receive proper care. The pediatric wing of the hospital has been closed and reopened several times, forcing many families to drive 20-30 minutes away to receive care. Beds are often unavailable and people have to drive to other cities to receive care for their children. The loss of my grandparents played a big part in my wish to study nursing. I started exploring the career more after they passed away because I wanted to be of service and honor them. I wanted to be the healthcare professional that they needed. I want to be a voice to the voiceless and a compassionate heart to those who may need it. I want to lead by example and serve my community with the best medical care. I am a servant leader. As the captain of the cheer team and vice president of the Xinos club, I have participated in community service activities that have benefited the community. I was involved with the local food bank and Senior living facility. I have led and wish to be more impactful by helping the sick. I am committed to making a positive impact on the world through nursing. In the Bible, Christ commands us to "Love one another, as I have loved you." I believe that Nursing is the calling that allows us to follow through with this commandment. Having a servant's heart and leadership skills demonstrate that I can be impactful. Nurses are bound to show compassion and love for all that come before them. The healthy are called upon to look after the weak in their time of need. The nursing profession is the career choice that will allow me to spread the ministry of Christianity effectively. After graduating, I will apply for work as a nurse at a hospital. While my ultimate goal is to work as a traveling nurse to continue serving underrepresented communities, starting in a hospital provides me with exposure to the health needs of my community. Being a nurse will provide me the opportunity to make a positive impact on my community by allowing me the chance to serve them. Nursing is the most direct option to provide servant leadership. I am applying for this scholarship to help me start my journey into nursing. I am trying to take advantage of any opportunity that will aid me in achieving my goals. I need additional financial aid to cover the academic costs associated with serving my community. I appreciate your consideration, and I hope you can help me pursue a profession in nursing. Nursing is my passion, and I have a clear plan to turn that passion into a lifelong career.

Loss is a process. It may be sudden or expected, either way, it is a process that leaves you with feelings that manifest from grief. You grieve because they are no longer physically with you. You miss their presence, their scent, and their words. Your heart aches for the experiences that they are missing. When this loss comes from the absence of a loved one, sometimes you try to rationalize- but it doesn’t make the hurt stop. The loss of my grandparents, after finding out that I had a learning disability, forever changed my life. As I was about to enter middle school, my grandmother passed away. It was a heavy blow because she had been a constant figure in my life for as long as I could remember. I had watched her get sicker and sicker from complications of diabetes and kidney disease, but I never thought that there would be a time that she wouldn’t be here. I believed that I could nurse her back to good health or save her. She was my reason for choosing nursing. She passed away just as I was learning that I had a specific learning disability. My educational journey coupled with such a major blow during puberty, would forever change me. I believed that I could save her, through nursing. I never thought that there would be a day that she wouldn’t be here. I was her only grandchild. She taught me everything I know about cooking and I was going to save her. Discovering that I had some learning challenges made it difficult to participate in middle school. I worked hard but struggled to perform well on exams. I couldn’t remember things that I had spent days studying. This learning challenge changed how I understood information. This first loss was traumatic for me. My entire world changed overnight. My grandfather came to live with us and I could accept that she was no longer here in the physical world because I knew she was at peace. I watched her body decline, but I knew that she was no longer in pain. This made accepting this a little easier. But three years later, Covid struck and the world as I knew it was no more. My grandfather unexpectedly passed away. I was in a world that I no longer knew and nothing was familiar. He was always a constant, he would drive my grandmother and me around all day. I had never ridden a school bus because he was punctually there on time to pick me up and now what? How do start a new school without him? Pre-K to 8th grade he would pick me up and seemingly overnight the world got dark and he was no longer here. I was preparing to start high school, and the man who was always present was suddenly gone from my sight. Loss is funny because sometimes you understand that your loved one needs to rest, which was the case for my grandmother. She physically could not do it anymore. Then there are the unexpected losses like my grandfather that rock you to your core. A person who was in good health is snatched from you. I felt like he just moved away overnight. No goodbye, no I will see you later or anything. These losses leave tremendous scars and are sometimes impossible to come back from. My grandparents taught me to love, have a good heart, and have good character. They always put their family first and this is what matters most- family. My grandparents taught me that what matters most in my life is my education. My grandparents left behind their family and friends to come North for better job opportunities. In the South, during their adolescence, they decided to give their family better opportunities they would need to leave. They instilled in me from an early age that I could be whatever I wanted. Long gone were the days that I would have to work in service- I could be educated and be a nurse with the opportunities that they never had. Nursing is a calling, it’s a job of heart. The suddenness of these losses created a need for me to remain focused on my family and my desire to fight through my learning disability. There are no guarantees and life is precious and not promised. I have to focus on working twice as hard to achieve and overcome, but my family taught me that anything worth having is worth working for. My heart hurt when they left me, but I accepted that my grandmother was no longer in pain and that he needed to be with her. I made it through middle and high school- I know that they would be proud of me.

I am committed to radiating the light of Christ in the nursing profession. In the Bible, Christ commands us to love and care for one another. “Love one another, as I have loved you.” It is my belief, that Nursing is the calling that allows us to follow through with this commandment. Nurses are bound to practice their profession faithfully. It is through faith that nurses are called to serve. A servant's heart and attitude are necessary to help the sick. A faith-based education helped to instill this in me. In the Bible, the healthy are called upon to look after the sick and weak in their time of need. The nursing profession is the career choice that will allow me to continue to spread the ministry of Christianity to all. Attending a Catholic high school allowed me to learn and grow in faith while getting an education. This grounded me and prepared me for the next big step in life after high school. I benefited from smaller classes, hands-on learning opportunities, and service opportunities that allowed me to practice my faith. I believe, my relationship with Jesus has profoundly impacted my career choice because of His teachings. Through every step of my journey, my faith provided me anchored support I needed to overcome. Attending a Catholic high school instilled the call to be a vessel to all who may need encouragement. I believe that I was called to lead by example to serve as a source of inspiration. The Bible says, “Man that is born of a woman Is of few days, and full of trouble.” This means that while our days on this earth are few, there will always be trouble. Faith teaches us that we should hang on to His word and rest in the knowledge that He is the way, the Truth, and the Light. My journey throughout my education was full of trouble. I was diagnosed with a learning disability in the 6th grade and had to figure out what learning methods worked best for me. Things were difficult, I struggled with remembering and understanding things. I would study and study and still perform poorly on the exams. I struggled throughout my journey, but I never lost my faith. When things got hard I prayed even harder for help. Attending Catholic school, I learned to go in prayer and He would help me. My relationship with Jesus impacted me to remember that nowhere in the Bible did they say that things would be easy. It was not easy for Jesus to lay down His life for us. He had doubts but He asked for help. He forgave his trespassers as He hung and died on the cross. Nursing is a calling, a profession of humility. We assist the poor and afflicted, we help people who may or may not like us because of our beliefs or skin color. But my faith has taught me to LOVE them all no matter what.