My experience with mental health is like a thread woven throughout my life, shaped by personal struggles and by witnessing the suffering of people close to me. I have battled anxiety since childhood, a quiet, persistent hum in the background that occasionally roared to the forefront in stressful times. In my twenties, an eating disorder drove me to finally seek therapy to address my issues. I have supported loved ones through depression, PTSD, substance abuse, and suicidality. For years, I didn’t have the language to name these experiences. I just knew I wanted to help, even if I did not yet know how. In November 2023, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. That same week, my longtime counselor passed away. Grief, fear, and uncertainty closed in all at once, and I was forced to confront the limits of control and the fragility of life. Through that darkness, I also found clarity. I knew, without a doubt, that if I lived through this, I would harness all my previous experiences and available resources to become a mental health counselor, walking with others through their own moments of crisis, transition, and healing. Therapy gave me a personal understanding of the transformational power of integrated mental health support and how mental health is connected to every facet of our lives. For almost 20 years, I’ve worked with different counselors. Each relationship has offered a sanctuary of trust and reflection in challenging times. My counselors helped me learn how to listen to myself, how to explore the unspoken, and how to face hard times with courage and grace. During the darkest days of my cancer journey, for example, I struggled to navigate a broken healthcare system to get the treatment I needed. Therapy helped transform these challenges into a deep desire to heal and to help others do the same. As you know, our healthcare systems are failing people in need. I have personally experienced and also watched friends struggle to find affordable and culturally-competent care. There are countless stories of overmedication, impersonal treatment, or being turned away due to lack of insurance. I have walked alongside family members whose mental health issues were dismissed or misunderstood, who fell through the cracks because the support they needed did not exist or wasn’t accessible to them. Like Sheri, they were caught in a system that offered inadequate care draped in platitudes instead of true help and healing. These experiences have profoundly shaped my values and career aspirations. I believe that mental health is inextricably linked to every other part of our lives. I believe that healing is possible if we listen deeply to those who are suffering and believe them. We need to expand access to integrative solutions and evolve the way we understand and treat mental health. I believe in connection over isolation, prevention over punishment, and in providing care that is trauma-informed, holistic, and rooted in human dignity instead of prioritizing corporate profit and government quotas. In 2024, as soon as I was strong enough in my own treatment and recovery, I enrolled in graduate school to earn a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. I’m now training to become a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). I strive to bring my full self to this work: all my life experiences, empathy, and newfound resilience. I am drawn to supporting people who are navigating grief, illness, and all manner of life’s inevitable difficulties. As a musician and member of a military family, I feel a deep calling to work with creative professionals and veterans, communities often underserved and misunderstood by traditional mental health approaches. Beyond clinical practice, I want to be part of reimagining how we support mental health on a broader scale. This includes advocating for policy change, collaborating with nonprofits in my community, and integrating the expressive arts and somatic practices into healing work. For years, I have volunteered with organizations such as Home Street Music, Song Rise Arts, and SIMS Foundation, which are working to increase awareness of mental health issues among underserved populations and provide direct access to counseling services. The effects of this work ripple out into our families and communities. I have witnessed how even one conversation can break the silence and shift the trajectory of a life into authentic expression and healing. I want to be the kind of counselor who holds that space with compassion, curiosity, and a commitment to fostering hope without stigma. Receiving the Elevate Mental Health Awareness Scholarship would be a tremendous honor. It would help me overcome financial barriers of returning to school and take a bit of pressure off as I balance my courses with continuing to work to support my family. It would also be a vote of confidence in my potential to make a difference. I am passionate about this work and dedicated to using my degree to serve others with skill, heart, and integrity. This scholarship aligns directly with my mission to illuminate what’s often hidden, to elevate awareness and access, and to honor the legacies of those we have lost. My long-term goal is to open a private practice that integrates traditional counseling with creative, somatic, and trauma-informed approaches to wellness. I want to create a welcoming space for individuals and families to heal, grow, and reclaim their sense of purpose and connection. I am ready to be part of a new generation of counselors who show up with genuine compassion, humility, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be fully human, with all its beauty, pain, and complexity. Thank you for creating this scholarship in honor of your mother Sheri. It is comforting to know there is support for those of us working to turn the tide and provide innovative, personal, and effective mental health care in our communities and beyond.

I am currently pursuing a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with the goal of becoming a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC). After a 20-year career in another field, returning to graduate school has been a bold and transformative decision that reflects my deep commitment to helping others and to building a more compassionate, resilient future for my community. In late 2023, I was diagnosed with lung cancer. That moment changed everything. Facing my own mortality gave me a renewed sense of urgency and clarity about how I want to spend my life and what kind of legacy I want to leave. As soon as I was healthy enough, I enrolled in graduate school and began walking this new path with greater purpose and a desire to become a skilled leader in the counseling profession. I want to empower others on their own bold paths, particularly those navigating trauma, grief, or serious health challenges. These are areas I now understand on a deeply personal level. My academic performance reflects my commitment to this calling. Going into the third of six semesters in my graduate program, I have a 4.0 GPA while balancing coursework with employment and family responsibilities. I bring the full breadth of my life experiences to my studies and am driven to apply all I am learning in service of others. I come from a military family and have worked as a musician for many years, so I am especially interested in providing mental health support to veterans and creative professionals in my community. I believe in the healing power of therapeutic connection, and I know firsthand how a supportive counselor can make a profound difference in someone’s life. That’s the kind of counselor I aspire to be, showing up with empathy, insight, and unwavering commitment to the well-being of others. This scholarship will make a meaningful difference in helping me achieve my educational and career goals. Because graduate students are not eligible for federal Pell Grants or subsidized loans, the cost of tuition is a significant burden, especially after my recent medical care depleted my personal savings. After receiving a small grant and merit scholarship from my university, my current tuition balance is $12,496. I am still working to cover expenses, so every bit of support makes a difference. This scholarship will directly reduce my financial burden. It will allow me to focus more fully on my studies and practicum training by easing the constant stress of how to make ends meet. Receiving this support would not only relieve a practical barrier, it would be a vote of confidence in my potential to make a difference. I am passionate about this work and dedicated to using my degree to serve others with skill, heart, and integrity. This scholarship is a bridge to the future I am working hard to create. My long-term goal is to open a private practice that integrates traditional counseling with creative, somatic, and trauma-informed approaches. I want to create a welcoming space for individuals and families to heal, grow, and reclaim their sense of purpose and connection. Your belief in the power of education to shape a better future for all of the world aligns perfectly with my own vision and I thank you for considering my application.

I have always felt called to the counseling profession, but it wasn’t until I was diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2023 that my mission came into sharp focus. As soon as I was healthy enough, I returned to school to pursue a master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. My goal is to become a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and, like Debra, to reimagine life after a 20-year career, opening new doors and serving my community in meaningful ways. Returning to school as an adult learner brings a unique set of challenges while balancing coursework, employment, and family responsibilities. These demands didn’t exist during my undergraduate years, but walking through them now has only deepened my motivation. I am committed to finding the resources and support necessary, one step at a time, to make this dream a reality. Today, I am grateful to have a good health prognosis and the opportunity to live many more healthy years. But the early days of my diagnosis were filled with fear and uncertainty. Confronting mortality reshaped my priorities and clarified the legacy I hope to leave. In a sad coincidence, the same week I learned about my tumor, my longtime counselor passed away. As I grieved both losses, I turned to my community for support and prioritized finding a new counselor to help me navigate the emotional and logistical complexities of my situation. That experience reinforced what I already knew: the counseling relationship is special. It is both professional and deeply personal. My counselors have been steady anchors through life’s challenges, and I now feel called to offer that same grounding presence to others in need. Completing my degree and earning my LPC license will allow me to support people from all walks of life with a safe space for healing and growth. I am especially passionate about working with creatives and veterans, communities I understand well as a musician and member of a military family. My recent health journey has also given me a particular empathy for those who are grieving or facing serious medical diagnoses. I look forward to discovering where my personal experiences and the needs of my community most meaningfully intersect. In this new chapter of my life, success means living in full awareness of the gift of our time on earth, embracing uncertainty and challenge, and using my skills to walk alongside others as they find their way forward. Financially, returning to school has required sacrifice. Graduate students are not eligible for Pell Grants or subsidized loans, and the cost of my recent medical care depleted most of my savings. I am working while in school, but the burden remains significant. This scholarship would directly reduce my loan burden. My current tuition balance is $12,496 after a $2,300 grant and $1,000 merit scholarship from my university. I am proud to follow Debra’s inspiring example by embracing second chances, transforming hardship into purpose, and using education as a pathway to deeper service. Thank you for honoring her legacy with this scholarship and for taking the time to consider my application.

As a child, my parents would often find me lying on my stomach, head propped in one hand, scouring through their encyclopedias. Like Patrick, I have always had a love of learning. I took pride in my grades and when I got to the University of Texas at Austin, I started off in the business school. My sophomore year, though, I was selected as a Normandy Scholar, which gave me the opportunity to study World War II in depth and finish the semester in Europe. That experience expanded my whole perspective. I changed my major to Humanities, which at UT Austin is a program that allows students to design their own major, if they can prove it does not already exist, and present a thesis at the end to earn a Bachelor’s degree. I studied child development through music and wrote my thesis on the crisis in funding for music education in California’s public schools in the late 1990’s. Sadly, funding for arts education in public schools has only decreased nationwide since then. It is heartening to see the STEM movement now embracing the arts to become STEAM. After graduating in 2000, I pursued careers as a musician and a project management consultant. I especially enjoy the constant learning that comes with being an independent artist, wearing all the hats, from accountant to zipper-sewer. I have also been able to mentor others through teaching and volunteering. Lately, though, there has been a sea change in my life and a calling to return to more formal education, so I can have a deeper impact in my community. Last fall, I was having chest pain and a baseball-size tumor was discovered in my lung. Seven weeks later, a surgeon removed the entire upper left lobe of my lung. Pathologists have been unable to identify the tumor. They tell me it is the subject of a study that will be published in a medical journal later this year! Throughout the challenging time of discovery, surgery, and recovery, it felt like my whole world stopped spinning. I learned in a more personal way about grief, mind-body connections, and especially about the power of love, friendship, and community to help us get through hard times, whatever the outcome. I am incredibly fortunate to have a prognosis that gives me the chance to live many healthy years ahead. In those first scary days, though, some things became very clear in my heart and mind. I thought less of what others would think and more about what I feel led to do. What legacy will I leave behind? As poet Mary Oliver asks, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Getting my master’s degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling is the realization of a desire that has tugged at my heart for many years. As a licensed professional counselor (LPC) specializing in art therapy, I will help others as they face their own challenges, as my counselors have helped me. Since graduate students are not eligible for Pell grants or subsidized loans and my recent medical care exhausted most of my savings, I am seeking this scholarship to lessen my unsubsidized loan burden for my tuition this year. The balance is $12,496 after a $2,300 grant from my school and a $1,000 gift from friends. As a 46-year-old with a family, returning to school after a 24 year gap, I am proud to follow Patrick’s inspiring example. Thank you for considering my application.

Doctors say they have never seen anything quite like it before. They tell me it is the subject of a report that will be published in a medical journal later this year. It all started in the fall of 2023, when I went to see my physician because I was having chest pain. Seven weeks later, a surgeon removed the upper left lobe of my lung, which contained a baseball-size tumor. Pathologists from the best cancer centers in the world have been unable to identify the tumor. What caused it or how long it had been growing is still a mystery. My whole world seemed to stop spinning. Throughout that challenging time of diagnosis, surgery, and recovery, filled with uncertainty and physical pain, I learned in a more personal way about grief, about somatic mind-body connections, about the power of words and beliefs, and especially about the power of love, friendship, and community support to help us get through hard times and come out stronger on the other side. Even though there are still a lot of unknowns, I am fortunate to have a prognosis that gives me the chance to live many healthy years ahead. In those first days, though, when I thought I was dying, some things became very clear in my heart and mind. I thought less of what others would think and more about what I feel led to do. What legacy will I leave behind? As poet Mary Oliver asks, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” Until then, I never thought of it as a calling, but friends and strangers have always confided in me - and I have loved being a sounding board for them. When I was traveling a lot for work, I spent hours on airplanes each week, listening to the stories and confessions of the people who happened to be sitting next to me. It is truly amazing, the personal details people are willing, even eager, to share with a complete stranger. Sometimes I offered advice. Other times I just listened and tried to provide a comforting ear. Those brief anonymous informal exchanges showed me how deeply people need to feel heard, even if just for the time it takes to fly from Dallas to Chicago. To be witnessed in a space where we feel safe sharing with someone else gives us courage to face difficult things and not feel so alone. As I faced my own mortality in a new way with my tumor diagnosis, I also needed to be heard, witnessed, and supported. As it all began to unfold, my longtime counselor passed away after her own long illness. I think she would have joked that her timing was terrible, but I was able to draw on the many lessons and great wisdom she had shared with me over the years and identify the resources I would need to get through such a difficult chapter. As I gathered my friends around me, I also prioritized finding a new counselor to hold space for the roller coaster of emotions throughout my healing journey. It is an interesting relationship, one that is professional, yet profoundly personal at the same time. It has helped me stay grounded and centered. Getting my master’s degree in a Clinical Mental Health Counseling program is the realization of a desire that has tugged at my heart for many years. With my recent experiences, it has blossomed into a true calling. Now, I want to help others as they face their own challenges, as my counselors have helped me. Success, to me, is living a life fully aware of the gift of our time on earth, with all its uncertainty and challenges, and being able to use my skills and resources to help others do the same. This scholarship will help me achieve my goal of becoming a licensed professional counselor (LPC), giving people from all walks of life a safe space to explore their lives and inner worlds, to bring lasting change and healing to themselves and their families. I have a special interest in working with creatives, veterans, and people who are grieving or facing a difficult medical diagnosis, and I look forward to seeing where my interests and the needs of my community intersect. Since I exhausted my savings to pay for medical care, I am relying on student loans to pay my tuition. This scholarship will help defray the burden of that cost. Thank you for taking the time to consider my application.