If my life were a weather forecast, it would read: cloudy with a chance of survival, then bloom. I was raised in Camden, New Jersey, where silence was louder than sirens and the storms of generational trauma were passed down like heirlooms. In my family, we didn’t talk about depression, anxiety, or grief. We were taught to pray, to be strong, and to keep quiet. Mental health didn’t have a name. It had a mask. I learned to wear that mask well, even as I silently battled self-harm, trauma, and abandonment. I dropped out of college during my first attempt after being sexually assaulted. I was too ashamed to tell anyone. I smiled through it. I tried therapy, then antidepressants, then silence again. But nothing worked until I was on the edge, ready to give up completely. That’s when I felt something shift. In the stillness of that night, I heard God’s voice in a whisper: “Hold on. There is more.” That quiet message was the first sign of spring after a long winter. I’m now a proud, non-traditional student majoring in Social Work and Psychology at Delaware State University. I am also a certified medical assistant, a writer, a book club founder, and a survivor. I’m reclaiming the life I thought I lost and using it to fuel the purpose I was born with. I want to become a licensed clinical social worker who provides affordable mental health services to underserved communities, especially Black and Brown women who’ve been taught to suffer in silence. I want to be the kind of help I never had. What shaped me wasn’t just the trauma I experienced, but the healing I fought for. I found a version of myself I didn’t know existed in therapy sessions, in college classrooms, and in volunteer work with SERV, a domestic and sexual violence advocacy program. I used to be afraid of social workers. Now, I want to be one. I want to meet people in their darkest moments and remind them they’re not alone. I want to open doors for young girls who look like me and remind them that it’s okay to start over. Returning to college hasn’t been easy. I work full-time. I live independently. I pay my bills. I juggle assignments, healing, and life. But I do it with pride because every step I take is a step my younger self never thought she’d see. I’ve rebuilt my GPA, my confidence, and my vision for the future. I’m no longer just surviving. I’m blooming. The Doc & Glo Scholarship would be more than just financial help. It would be a tribute to the people who poured into me when I couldn’t pour into myself. It would help lighten my load and allow me to focus more on my fieldwork, my classes, and my community impact. Most importantly, it would carry forward the legacy of resilience, kindness, and self-belief that Sloane’s grandparents embodied. These are values I now live by. I may not have chosen the storms I went through, but I am choosing what I build from the rain. I am choosing purpose, healing, and impact. I am choosing to become someone my younger self would have felt safe with. And that choice is everything.

As a non-traditional, first-generation college student majoring in Social Work and minoring in Psychology, I believe I was called to this path for a greater purpose. My education is not just about earning a degree. It is about healing generational wounds, breaking cycles of silence, and becoming the kind of woman I wish my younger self had when the world felt too heavy to carry alone. Returning to school was not easy. I had to push past the shame of dropping out after surviving trauma during my first year of college. I had to silence the voice in my head that told me I was too broken to begin again. I chose faith over fear. I chose to stand in the calling God placed on my life, to serve, to advocate, and to empower others through the power of mental health care. Studying Social Work at my college has allowed me to integrate my faith with my academic journey. I do not just want to be a therapist. I want to be a witness. I want to sit with women who are hurting and remind them that they are not forgotten. I want to serve families who have never known what healing looks like. I want to be a voice for the voiceless, just as Esther was in a time when her courage made history. “Perhaps you were born for such a time as this” (Esther 4:14) reminds me that there is purpose in the very position I am in, even if it comes with struggle. But the financial weight of pursuing higher education is real. I work full-time while attending college and often struggle to afford the basic expenses of tuition, textbooks, and transportation. I have sacrificed sleep and stability just to stay enrolled. Scholarships like this one do not just lift a financial burden. They remind women like me that our fight is seen, our faith is rewarded, and our future is still unfolding. This scholarship would allow me to continue my education without constantly fearing whether I will have to choose between groceries and textbooks. It would give me the chance to focus fully on my studies and internships so I can become the licensed clinical social worker I know God is shaping me to be. It would allow me to pursue this calling with excellence, knowing that I have the support of a community that believes in women who rise in spite of every reason to quit. Though I am not yet a mother, I was raised by one. A single, strong, Black woman who taught me that faith can carry you through even the darkest storms. Her strength is in my bones, and I carry her prayers with me every time I log into class, every time I write a paper, and every time I dare to dream a little bigger. “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me” (Philippians 4:13) has been the verse I repeat when the pressure feels too great to bear. This is more than a scholarship. This is fuel for a mission. And I believe I was made for such a time as this.

Growing up in Camden, New Jersey, shaped my spirit long before I understood the meaning of purpose. The city, often labeled by its crime rate or poverty level, is also a place full of strength, culture, and stories that deserve to be told. Behind the boarded windows and broken systems were people, especially women, who carried their families with a quiet strength. One of those women was my mother. As a child, I watched her endure pain that no one should. My father was an alcoholic whose addiction often turned violent. I saw the bruises she hid, the way she smiled through pain, and the faith she clung to even when everything around her was falling apart. After their divorce, we struggled financially, but what hurt more than the bills was the silence. In our community, we didn’t talk about mental health. We didn’t talk about trauma. We survived it. That silence followed me into my teenage years. I learned to hold things in, to pretend everything was fine, to be strong. When I was sexually assaulted during my first year of college, I didn’t speak up. Not because I didn’t want to, but because I didn’t know how. I had grown up watching pain be swallowed whole and hidden behind strength. I dropped out of school, convinced I was broken beyond repair. However, healing has a way of finding you when you are ready. Years later, a Black woman therapist helped me unpack not just that one moment of trauma, but the entire foundation I had been raised on. Therapy gave me back my voice. It helped me name what I had been through and taught me that survival is not the same as healing. Now, as a student at an HBCU, I finally feel like I belong. Delaware State University has given me the space to be seen, supported, and celebrated. Not just as a student, but as a Black woman determined to make a difference. Majoring in Social Work and Psychology is more than a career path for me. It is a promise. I plan to become a licensed clinical social worker and open a wellness center focused on serving African American women who have experienced domestic violence, trauma, or substance abuse in their families. I want to break the silence I grew up with and build bridges where barriers once stood. Being from New Jersey did not just influence my beliefs. It gave me grit. It taught me that community matters, that representation matters, and that even in the face of hardship, dreams are still worth chasing. I am determined to be the woman I needed when I was younger, and I refuse to let financial hardship stop me from fulfilling that purpose. This scholarship would ease the burden of student debt and bring me one step closer to serving the very communities that raised me. My story began in Camden, but I am writing a new ending. One rooted in healing, hope, and impact.

In the spirit of love, desire, and drama, Temptation Tango is a brand-new Love Island challenge designed to test loyalty, stir tension, and turn up the heat like never before. This isn’t just a game, it’s an emotional battlefield wrapped in silk sheets and glittering candles. At its core, this challenge reveals who’s truly locked in and who’s still playing the field, all while delivering a cinematic, seductive experience for viewers. The setup is simple but seductive. Each Islander must perform a slow, sensual “temptation dance” with someone who isn’t their current partner. Think slow dancing meets lap dance meets truth-or-dare, but with feelings on the line. The villa is transformed into a sultry ballroom filled with soft lighting, rose petals, and live romantic music. Islanders draw names at random and are paired with someone who might just make their current partner sweat. After each performance, couples will sit in the "Hot Seat" to watch their partner's moment of temptation, and they must rate it from 1 to 10 in terms of loyalty, chemistry, and how threatened they feel. Here’s the twist: if any Islander rates their partner below a 6, they must answer a deep, steamy personal question in front of the group. No skipping. Midway through the challenge, Islanders face a brutal twist called "The Touch Test.” With blindfolds on, they must identify their partner’s touch out of a lineup. If they get it wrong, they’ll be dared to reveal the last time they were physically intimate before entering the villa. If they get it right, they win the chance to whisper a fantasy in their partner’s ear that the producers may choose to make a reality later. The final stage is where hearts get tested. Each Islander must confess: Would you kiss your temptation if your partner left the villa tomorrow? They say it out loud, looking their current partner directly in the eyes. Some will tell the truth. Others will fold under pressure. Either way, truths will come out, and the villa will never be the same. This challenge brings more than steamy fun; it builds emotional intensity and tests the foundation of every couple. It pushes Islanders to confront trust, jealousy, and temptation in ways they can't avoid. It forces them to ask: Is our connection real, or are we just comfortable? At its heart, Temptation Tango is about choice: to stay, to stray, or to fight for the one you’ve grown to love. The fire it sparks will either strengthen the bonds in the villa, or burn them to the ground. Either way, the audience will be watching, hearts pounding, as the truth dances into the open.

There was a moment in my life when I wasn’t sure if I’d ever feel whole again. I was eighteen, alone in my college dorm, holding onto pain I didn’t ask for and silence I didn’t know how to break. I had just been sexually assaulted by someone I trusted, and my entire world shifted. The girl who once had dreams of changing lives through psychology and social work suddenly couldn’t get out of bed. I dropped out of school. I isolated. I blamed myself. I became a shell of the version of me I used to know. For a long time, I pretended I was fine. I smiled through the anxiety, prayed through the depression, and wore strength like armor. I was raised in a community where we didn’t talk about mental health. We talked to God. We stayed strong. We survived. But no one ever taught me how to heal. Everything changed when I decided to go to therapy. My therapist, a Black woman who reminded me of my aunties, was the first person who truly saw me. I told her things I had never said out loud. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t rush me. She simply held space for me. And in that space, I found myself again. Piece by piece. That decision to say yes to healing became the most powerful act of love I’ve ever shown myself. It was also the moment I realized my purpose. Today, I am a proud Social Work major. I returned to college not just to earn a degree, but to rewrite the narrative I once believed about myself, that I was broken, unworthy, or too far gone. I came back because I want to be for others what my therapist was for me. I want to be the voice that reminds a young black girl she is not too damaged to be helped. I want to build spaces where women like me can sit in their truth and not feel shame. My aspirations are deeply personal. I plan to become a licensed clinical social worker and open a private practice focused on affordable therapy for marginalized communities. My mission is to center the healing of survivors and anyone who has ever been told to stay quiet about their pain. I don’t just want to serve. I want to transform. I want to help others find their way back to themselves, the same way I found my way back to myself. Every essay I write, every class I pass, every step I take toward this dream is in honor of the version of me that almost didn’t make it. I carry her with me in everything I do. And every life I touch in the future will be a reflection of her courage to keep going. This is more than a career for me. It’s a calling. And I intend to answer it with every ounce of compassion, strength, and love I have left.

There are cities where survival is taught before reading. Places where sirens lull you to sleep and laughter often hides behind closed doors. I was raised in one of those places where trauma travels through generations and silence is passed down like family tradition. In my world, we did not talk about mental health. We called it being tired. We called it “staying strong.” We called it “trusting God and moving on.” My mother was the definition of strength. She held our family together on her own, working hours that stretched into the night and mornings that came too soon. Her eyes carried stories she never told, and I learned early to do the same. We did not cry in front of each other. We did not name our pain. We kept going, even when it hurt to breathe. By the time I was in middle school, I had already found my way of coping. I began to hurt myself in quiet moments, marking my skin in places no one could see. I needed a way to make the invisible pain real. It became routine. I would cry silently, wipe my face, and show up the next morning like nothing happened. College was supposed to be my escape. It was my chance to become something more. For a moment, I believed I could leave the past behind. Then I was sexually assaulted during my first year. What was taken from me went beyond the physical. It erased my sense of safety, my ability to trust, and my belief in a future I had barely started to imagine. I stopped going to class. I stopped reaching out to people. I drifted away from everything, including myself. Eventually, I left school completely, feeling ashamed and defeated. I believed I was too broken to be anything more than what I had already survived. Help came in the form of therapy. I met a Black woman therapist who looked at me like I was still whole, even as I sat in front of her unraveling. She did not rush to fix me. She allowed me to fall apart. For the first time in my life, I felt like I could exhale. I learned that healing was not about erasing the past. It was about honoring it without letting it define me. Today, I am a Social Work and Psychology major with a 3.0 GPA. Returning to school was not easy, but it was necessary. I now lead a virtual book club for Black women that centers healing, self-love, and community. I volunteer with survivors of sexual violence, and I use my story as a reminder that pain can be transformed into purpose. My goal is to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker. I want to open a wellness space where women and girls from marginalized backgrounds can access free therapy, trauma-informed care, and support that meets them where they are. I want to serve those who were taught to stay quiet about their pain. I want them to feel seen before they are forced to scream for help. The Arnetha V. Bishop Memorial Scholarship would not only ease the financial burden of continuing my education. It would affirm the value of lived experience in shaping the next generation of healers. This scholarship would allow me to keep turning survival into service, pain into purpose, and silence into something that finally speaks. No one should have to break to be believed. I will spend my life making sure they do not.

For most of my life, I thought pain was something you had to carry alone. As a child, I used to believe that if you ignored it long enough, prayed hard enough, or smiled wide enough, it would eventually disappear. In my world, talking about mental health was not only uncommon, it was unthinkable. Strength was defined by silence, and survival was celebrated, even if it meant barely holding on. But the truth is that silence nearly killed me. I grew up in Camden, New Jersey, in a home full of struggle and tough love, but not always healthy communication and understanding. My mother, a woman with a heart full of faith and arthritis hands from working endless hours, did her best to protect us from the world. Still, I could see the weight she carried. There were nights she cried in the bathroom, and days she worked herself into exhaustion. She wore her suffering like armor. There were no words for depression or anxiety in our household. There was only prayer, Scripture, and silence. As a child, I began to break quietly. I would cry myself to sleep and then wake up pretending everything was fine. By middle school, I slowly found myself cutting my hair and minimal self-harming that hid underneath my clothes. I didn’t even know the word for what I was doing. I just knew it helped me feel something when everything else felt numb. I kept my wounds hidden under long sleeves and practiced my smile like it was a performance. Nobody asked, “What was wrong?”, so I didn’t tell. My first original test drive of college, my world fell apart. I was sexually assult; r-worded by my guy best friend. I lost not only my sense of safety but also my sense of self. I stopped going to class. I stopped eating. I stopped caring. I used to find myself standing in the street in the middle of the night. The trauma cracked something open in me that I had spent years trying to keep closed. The black hole full of thoughts of suicide, the depression, the anxiety…..I could no longer pretend they didn’t exist. But still, I stayed quiet. I was terrified of what people would think, and even more terrified that no one would believe me. By January of 2019, I dropped out of college. I felt like a failure. I was ashamed, lost, and drowning in thoughts that scared me. In early 2020, it was time to leave the earth, so I made a plan to end my life. I truly believed the world would be better off without me. That moment, dark and desperate, became the turning point. I was hospitalized and eventually referred to a therapist. That’s when I met Ms. Tanoa. She didn’t fix me. She didn’t judge me. She sat with me in the wreckage of my story and helped me rebuild, one truth at a time. Through therapy, I learned how to name my pain instead of hiding it. I learned how to sit with my emotions without letting them destroy me. I began to heal. It wasn’t a straight line. Healing came in waves, and some days I still feel like I’m learning how to breathe again. But now, I no longer see my vulnerability as weakness. I see it as the beginning of my strength. That experience didn’t just change my life. It gave it meaning. My beliefs shifted in the most beautiful way. I no longer believe in hiding behind a mask of fake strength. I believe in radical honesty, in feeling deeply, and in the power of sharing our stories. I believe God doesn’t just live in churches. He lives in therapy rooms, in hard conversations, and quiet moments of grace and honesty. I believe healing is a form of resistance, especially for Black women who have been taught for generations to carry everyone’s pain except their own. My relationships have changed, too. I used to build walls. Now, I build bridges. I’ve learned how to communicate, how to love without losing myself, and how to ask for help without shame. The people I keep around me today are those who understand what it means to hurt and still show up. We hold each other accountable, and we hold each other gently. That kind of love saved my life. Most importantly, my career aspirations were born from my brokenness. I’m now majoring in Social Work and Psychology at Delaware State University. I want to become a Licensed Clinical Social Worker so I can serve the very communities I come from. Communities where mental health is still a taboo subject. Communities where silence is passed down like an inheritance. I want to create a wellness center that offers free mental health services, trauma support, and culturally competent care for Black and brown women. I want to be the therapist that I needed at 13, 18, and 21. I want to show girls like me that their pain is real. That their healing is possible. That their lives are worth fighting for. Everything I’ve been through with the trauma, the depression, and the breakdowns are no longer a source of shame. But the foundation of my purpose. My journey with mental health has taught me that you can fall apart and still rise. You can lose everything and still find yourself. You can be a survivor and still be soft. You can use your story to light the way for someone else. This scholarship would not just help me pay for school. It would be a part of my healing. A reminder that my story matters. That even in the darkest places, there is still hope. I am not just a student. I am a future healer. A voice for the voiceless. God’s stronger soldier and living proof that broken things can still be beautiful.

Growing up in Camden, New Jersey as a black woman, I learned early on that mental health was something we didn’t really talk about. In my grandmother’s house, the phrase “what happens in this house stays in this house” was more than just words. It was a rule. At first, I thought that was just my family’s way. But as I got older and spent time with my dad’s side too, I realized it wasn’t just us. It was something deeply rooted in the Black community. If we were upset, instead of someone asking what was wrong, or giving us proper tools, they’d handed us a Bible verse. My favorite phrase being Psalm 34:17-18 : "When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles. The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit." Our faith was strong, but the silence around mental health was stronger. It wasn’t until I went to college in 2017 and faced the traumatic experience of being sexually assaulted that I realized how harmful that silence could be. I didn’t know where to turn, so I did what I was taught: kept it quiet and leaned on friends. But one friend changed the course of my life by connecting me with Dr. Sanders, a Black licensed therapist. For the first time, I felt heard, validated, and safe enough to unpack not just my assault, but years of unspoken pain. Therapy saved me. It showed me that healing was possible and that our community deserves access to that same hope. That’s why, if given the opportunity, I would work to create free and accessible mental health services in under-resourced Black communities. Not just for survivors of violence, but for anyone, young or old, who is battling generational trauma, depression, anxiety, or simply trying to cope. Too many of us are taught that strength means silence. I want to change that narrative. Strength is in seeking help, in healing out loud, and in building spaces where our stories are not just heard but uplifted. During my time volunteering with SERV (Services Empowering Rights of Victims), I accompanied survivors of domestic and sexual violence to hospitals and police departments. Though I only served for a short while, that experience opened my eyes even more. I saw women and girls who looked like me, who had experienced what I had, yet still felt alone. I knew then that advocacy couldn’t stop with me. It had to grow into something bigger. Now, as a returning student majoring in Social Work and Psychology at Delaware State University, my mission is clear: to break the cycle of silence in Black and brown communities and replace it with access, awareness, and healing. This work is personal to me. It is rooted in my story, my pain, and my purpose. I don’t want another Black girl to feel like she has to carry her trauma in silence or that she has to be strong just to survive. Improving my community means investing in its emotional wellbeing. It means providing culturally competent therapists, group support, and resources for families. It means honoring people like Henry Walker Sr., who served selflessly for the greater good, by doing the same through service that uplifts and transforms. Our people deserve more than survival. We deserve to heal.

My childhood was a theater of war, and there was no victory, only survival in my own personal journey…. I grew up in a two-bedroom house where rats and roaches scurried around us like uninvited pets. My sister and I shared a room so cramped it felt like a prison cell. The air was heavy with silence, the kind that swallowed cries for help before they even left your throat. My mother worked herself to the bone, juggling endless shifts and government assistance that never stretched far enough. The fridge was empty, the electricity flickered like a warning, and the walls were thick with despair. I know my mother wrestled with her own demons—long, dark stretches of hopelessness—but she never let us see her crumble. Instead, she taught me the unspoken rule of survival: bury your pain, hide your struggles, and wear strength like a mask, even as it suffocates you. Over time suicidal thoughts began to cripple me. In middle school I would hurt myself with a knife, sticking it deep into my skin at night just to feel something. My depression began quietly, barely a whisper, but with each passing year the whispers grew louder. Perhaps, if I had spoken up then, things would have been different. But, in a community where mental health was never discussed, this wasn’t an option. My mother took me to Church where I was told you would go to hell if you committed suicide. Self-inflicted pain was my only escape. By 2017, during my initial college years, the self-harm resumed and the whispering voices returned to destroy me. Something I thought I had left behind in middle school was back and it was haunting me. I kept the marks hidden, wore long sleeves and a bright smile, to maintain the illusion of strength. What brought it back? I was sexually assaulted. Rape, if I must be transparent. My virginity taken. My youth was erased at 18. October 29, 2017 will always be why I don’t trust other humans. It destroyed any remaining pretense of control. I no longer controlled my depression; it controlled me. The assault left me a stranger to myself. It did not just violate my body; it violated my sense of self, my future, my ability to feel safe in my own skin. The sheer weight of it all, the assault, the years of unaddressed mental health struggles, forced me to drop out of college in 2019. This was a defeat, but worse a surrender. By January 2020, my vague thoughts of suicide became a concrete plan. The following months were a blur of psychiatric ward visits and sessions with a child therapist. This felt like rock bottom, and in a way it was; it was the foundation for my rebirth. By September 2020, I was working with my first adult therapist. Meeting her was a turning point. Ms. Tanoa saved my life. She helped reshape my understanding of mental health, of what it means to heal, and how to cope with my PTSD and depression. She helped me begin to process my trauma, and then to envision a bright future, a future where I did not just survive but I could thrive. Therapy taught me that healing isn’t just about getting your mind right. You need to get your life right too. I moved out of my childhood home, which was a first step towards independence, and to discovering myself. “You cannot heal in the same environment that broke you” ~ Anonymous Daily affirmations became my vocabulary, repeating “I am enough”, “I am strong”, “I am healing”, “I am not my trauma” until I believed. I read about the experiences of others, I found YouTube videos, I started writing poetry and I joined a sexual violence survivor group. I also built a supportive community around me, a community of people strong enough to be open about their mental health problems. My life has turned around. It has been years since I’ve had serious thoughts of self-harm. There are no whispers, only echoes of a whisper. I have now returned back to school and I am thriving. Straight A’s my first semester back proves I mean business. Most importantly, I know what I want to do with my life. I want to become a therapist (or a LCSW), focusing on young minority women who are dealing with unhealed trauma wounds. I can’t change my younger self, but I can help people who are like her. This is not just about having a career. It is about breaking the cycle of silence around mental health in the Black community. It is about creating spaces where young women, especially young Black women, can speak openly and freely, without fear of judgment. Through my community outreach work, I have already begun this mission, sharing my own story, in the hope that it will be helpful for others who are struggling as I once did. My journey has helped me understand what true strength is. I thought of my mother as strong, and in many ways she was. However, true strength is not about surviving, it’s about thriving through life’s uncertainties. Silence or stoicism are valuable survival strategies, but they will never take you where you want to be. To get there, you need to admit your vulnerability, you need to reach out for help like I did. My story is not over. I carry with me not just my own story of survival and revival, but the stories of the countless others who still struggle in the shadows. I want to help these people move out from the shadows. I know from my own experience that nobody can make you move out. You need to want it, but I also know from my own experience that people do want it more than ever before! My mental health journey has not just shaped my goals, it has made me the woman I am today: caring, strong, but also vulnerable, as all humans are.