My name is Gina Alves and I am applying for the Philip and Jacqueline Benincasa Education Scholarship. First, I want to send my condolences to the Benincasa family for losing both parents in such a short time period. Three years is not a long time to be without parents, and I can only imagine the loss you continually must feel. It sounds like your mother and father were wonderful people. Like Mrs. Benincasa, I am a teacher, and I am currently in the middle of earning my Masters in Teaching English. I have always known that I wanted to be a teacher. When I was a little girl, I would place my stuffed animals in a circle, read them stories, and sing them the ABCs (a very typical behavior of an only child). I come from a family of educators: my grandfather was the English department head in Canton, Massachusetts, my grandmother was a librarian and bookstore owner in Mansfield, Massachusetts, and my other grandmother was the only eighth-grade English teacher also in Mansfield. My teachers all knew my grandparents or aunts and uncles, and the teachers felt like an extended family who made learning fun. Even the "hard" teachers or "mean" teachers I appreciated and respected. They made me love learning. This love followed me to college where I enjoyed having thought-provoking discussions about Chaucer, Shakespeare, or the direction of teaching English. Continuing my education post-bachelors was always the plan. Life had other plans though. I found myself teaching in a place where I was not technically using my degree, nor was I compensated for credits earned. Then in 2019, I married, bought a house, and had a child all within 10 months, and then the pandemic happened five months after that. Fast-forward to 2022, with one more kid, a better job, and a need for a professional license, here I am: a 34-year-old, full-time teacher, mom, wife, homeowner. To say that money is tight is an understatement. Paying for graduate school, full-time daycare for two kids, and the amount of grapes and strawberries my toddlers consume is making us live beyond our means. I love being in graduate school -- it is my weekly three-hour escape from Cocomelon and whining teenagers to delve deep into the issues of education. It is brain stimulation and intellect and camaraderie. I will be sad when I finish but proud that I accomplished something so monumental when everything seemed to be working against me. Thank you for taking the time to read my essay, and I hope you consider me for the recipient of the scholarship in memory of your parents.