I have had several large losses in my life. I lost my mother, grandmother and grandfather all within 3 years. This has drastically made me reevaluate what is important to me in life. I have gone from an immature spoiled kid to a young adult who has to work and pay for his things all within the blink of an eye. This made me realize what's important in life such as my future. My mother always wanted me to be like my dad in the sense of a man who will work to the bone for his family and that's something I want to be. A man who will do what it takes for his family no matter the circumstance. I wanna be able to show my mom that I can be more than just what everybody has believed me to be and show them I am a success. I have already fought active drug addiction and overcame suicide several times. My next fight will be showing everybody what a "troubled kid" actually is. I wanna show having a morbid past does not define what or who you are but it is just a chapter of your story. I wanna make more chapters in my life that will be filled with smiles and laughs not fears and tears. I wanna break the generational curse of being trapped and settling and outshine my ancestors who felt like they had no options. I'm living proof you can be more than what is told about you. I am going to continue fighting for my mother's memory and show her that her son is strong and made it through his struggles.

The reason I want to go to a trade school is very simple. I feel like I will be able to accomplish something that I have never been able to do which would be making my family proud of something I've done. This may sound melancholy but I have been down a rough road from never having a dad to losing my mom and suffering from drug addiction. I have always wanted one thing in life which is to make my loved ones proud of me and make something of myself. Nobody in my life has believed I would be more than a convict, I want to prove everybody wrong and I believe this is my one opportunity to do something in my life that would be considered acceptable by my family. Not only would I be the first one in my family of both sides to go to college but I will be the first to escape my history and bed-ridden past. I would like to pursue an education in diesel mechanics. I have also loved cars and trucks but there has been nothing I love more than the smell of a diesel. It brings me back to my childhood working on a horse farm with my mother and her friend. It was one of the last times I remember being happy and feeling like a child with no worries. There is nothing I wouldn't give to have that feeling every day. Sense 4 years old I have loved tinkering with vehicles, I never had a dad or somebody to teach me so I've learned everything on my own. From how to change a tire to replacing head gaskets and changing oil. If I do get this scholarship I will use it to pay my college tuition. I won't have any help paying for college due to the fact everybody in my family is low-income. It is the biggest curse in my family is that nobody has been able to escape the struggle. Living paycheck to paycheck always worrying about money. Putting that fear into your children is something I wish to never do. I want my kids to be able to worry about nothing and never have to hear " We don't have money for that". I'm not saying I'm going to spoil my kids but I am going to work my ass off to make sure they don't have to have the same fears or responsibility of working 30+ hours a week at 16 to pay for food.

Ever sense a kid I remember being fascinated by cars, I loved going to mud runs, truck pulls, tractor pulls, and car races. I was always fascinated by the fact of how they work, I've always wanted to know the how of things. I loved taking things apart and putting them back together. My dad left at 6 months old and my mother was undiagnosed bipolar and was extremely abusive. I mainly was raised by my sister Brooklynn, after my mother died in October of 2021 my sister took custody of me. I lived with her for a year before moving into my aunt. While with my aunt I lost over 60 lbs due to lack of food in the house and I fell into an active addiction to pills and marijuana to cope with my mother(I have been clean for 3 months now and living back with Brooklynn). My brother Zach is currently a welder and mechanic. My father was a mechanic and welder for his whole life before he fell into drug addiction to heroin. In a way, I've always looked up to them wanting to make them happy and follow the family tradition of working on cars. It feels like I'm almost required to do this. A part of me feels like if I do this my father will be proud. I will show everybody who thinks I will amount to nothing and wants me to fail that I am not that, I am not a failure. I want to focus on diesel mechanics due to it being an undying form of gas. I truly do not believe that diesel is going anywhere soon. We use it in locomotives, pickups, dump trucks, tractors, excavators, bulldozers and several other large pieces of equipment that are operated on diesel. I believe that I can contribute by not only working on these pieces of equipment but also making them safer and more efficient. For example, most runaway diesel vehicle accidents could be prevented if there were mandated kill switches in the vehicles. That is just one of my innovations or ideas that could be helpful and save lives. I truly aspire to be a diesel technician not only to help others and figure out solutions but I will be the first in my family to finish high school without dropping out and pursue a job that requires a college education. My father, sister and brother never went to college and my mother went to college for business which she never did anything with. I have an opportunity to not only make something of the world but be the first in my family to make something of myself.

Ever sense a kid I remember being fascinated by cars, I loved going to mud runs, truck pulls, tractor pulls, and car races. I was always fascinated by the fact of how they work, I've always wanted to know the how of things. I loved taking things apart and putting them back together. My dad left at 6 months old and my mother was undiagnosed bipolar and was extremely abusive. I mainly was raised by my sister Brooklynn, after my mother died in October of 2021 my sister took custody of me. I lived with her for a year before moving into my aunt's. While with my aunt I lost over 60 lbs due to lack of food in the house and I fell into an active addiction to pills and marijuana to cope with my mother(I have been clean for 3 months now and living back with Brooklynn). My brother Zach is currently a welder and mechanic. My father was a mechanic and welder for his whole life before he fell into drug addiction to heroin. In a way, I've always looked up to them wanting to make them happy and follow the family tradition of working on cars. It feels like I'm almost required to do this. A part of me feels like if I do this my father will be proud. I will show everybody who thinks I will amount to nothing and wants me to fail that I am not that, I am not a failure.