I've been living a life of service since before I even knew what to call it. When my nephew started showing signs of a speech delay, I didn't wait for someone else to step in. I worked with him constantly, practicing sounds and words until he could communicate better. Watching him finally say a full sentence for the first time was one of those moments that changes you. That experience showed me what it means to show up for people who need you, especially when the systems that are supposed to help them fail. My work with Justice for Black Girls taught me that service isn't just about feeling good. It's about creating real change for people who are being ignored. I spent hours organizing campaigns for Black girls affected by violence and educational inequality. We were fighting for visibility, for accountability, for people to see these girls as human beings instead of statistics. I learned that advocacy means being uncomfortable sometimes and speaking up even when it's easier to stay quiet. That same energy carried me to the Feminist Majority, where I continued advocating for women's rights and social justice. Every hour I put into that work reminded me why I'm pursuing special education. I'm not just trying to get a job. I'm trying to create transformation in spaces where kids have been left behind by the system. Now I'm finishing my degree at Lincoln and heading to Temple for my Master's in Special Education. I chose this path because I want to serve students who remind me of myself and my community. Too many kids with disabilities get pushed to the side or labeled as problems instead of being seen for their potential. I refuse to let that happen in my classroom. I'm going to be the teacher who shows up for the kids everyone else has given up on. I'm actively working toward this right now by building my skills through my graduate program and staying connected to the communities I want to serve. I'm not doing this for a paycheck or because it looks good on paper. I'm doing it because I know what it feels like when nobody believes in you, and I want to be the person who proves that someone does. Service has always been at the center of who I am, and teaching is just the next way I'm going to live that out. My education isn't just for me. It's for every student I'm going to fight for in the years to come.

I’ve been a fan of Wicked for a long time, but it wasn’t until I got older that I realized why Elphaba’s story resonates so much with me. When you’re often judged by people who don't even know you. They look at your zip code or your family situation and they decide who you’re supposed to be before you even open your mouth. Elphaba deals with that same thing she’s judged by her skin color and her power, and instead of shrinking to fit in, she decides to "defy gravity." That theme of standing your ground even when the whole world is against you is something I’ve lived. Being a first-generation college student means you’re often the only one in the room who looks like you or has your background. There were so many times at Lincoln University where I felt like an outsider, just like Elphaba at Shiz University. But instead of giving up, I worked harder. I earned a Presidential Scholarship and proved that I belonged in those spaces. My favorite part of the story is the friendship between Elphaba and Glinda. It shows that you can come from completely different worlds and still change each other for the better. As a future special education teacher, that’s exactly what I want to do. I want to be the person who sees the "Elphabas" in the classroom the kids who are misunderstood or labeled as difficult and helps them find their own power. Wicked taught me that being "wicked" is sometimes just what they call you when you’re brave enough to challenge the system. I’m carrying that mindset into my Master’s program at Temple and my career in Philadelphia schools. I’m not afraid to be the one who speaks up for my students, even if it makes people uncomfortable. This scholarship would help me keep pushing forward and defying the expectations that were set for me a long time ago.

My mom had me when she was a teenager and that's basically everything you need to know about where I come from. There was no safety net. I remember her sitting at the kitchen table with bills scattered everywhere trying to figure out which ones she could actually pay that month. She never complained. She just said "we'll figure it out" and we always did somehow. That's where I learned you can't wait for someone to fix things for you. When I was applying to colleges, I knew my family couldn't help pay. So I made scholarships my whole focus. I filled out applications constantly, rewrote essays over and over, did whatever it took. When I got the Presidential Scholarship to Lincoln I cried because all that work finally meant something. Now I'm finishing at Lincoln and heading to Temple for my Master's in Special Ed. I want to go back to communities like mine and be the teacher who believes in kids before anyone else does. Too many students get dismissed because of where they're from, and I refuse to be that teacher. This scholarship would help with textbooks and tech costs that financial aid doesn't cover. Those expenses add up fast and I'm stretching every dollar. But I've made it this far and I'm not stopping now.

My experience with mental health, both as a researcher and as a young woman navigating life in an underserved community, has fundamentally reshaped my beliefs about what education should be and how I want to show up for others. Growing up in a low-income New York neighborhood, I witnessed firsthand how systemic pressure, economic instability, and unprocessed trauma create a baseline of chronic stress that impacts every relationship, academic endeavor, and life outcome. This lived experience became impossible to ignore when I entered Lincoln University and began my undergraduate research on mental health disparities and the psychological impact of social media on Black students at HBCUs. My research revealed what I already knew from lived experience: that mental health is not a luxury or a secondary concern, it is the foundation upon which all learning and growth occurs. This realization has changed me. I no longer believe that education is just about transferring information. I believe it is about creating conditions where young people feel psychologically safe enough to learn, to take risks, and to imagine futures beyond their current circumstances. My experience with mental health has taught me that trauma lives in the body, that behavior is communication, and that compassion is a prerequisite for any meaningful teaching and learning to happen. This understanding has profoundly influenced my relationships. I approach people, especially young people, with deep patience and radical empathy. I have learned that behind every challenging behavior, every silence, every outburst, is an unmet need or an unaddressed wound. In my organizing work with Justice for Black Girls and the Feminist Majority, I practice this belief daily. I create spaces where people feel heard, where their mental health struggles are validated, and where they are not pathologized for their responses to systemic oppression. Most importantly, my experience with mental health has solidified my career aspirations. As I move into my Master's program at Temple University and begin my career as a special education teacher in Philadelphia, I am committed to being an educator who prioritizes emotional safety as fiercely as academic rigor. I plan to make a positive impact by creating a classroom that functions as a sanctuary, where mental health is openly discussed and supported without shame. By advocating for trauma-informed practices and cultural competence in schools, I will ensure that my students are seen as whole human beings with limitless potential. I am dedicating my career to healing the systemic wounds that have historically hindered students from underserved communities from thriving. This is how I will make a difference.

Taylor Swift's "Marjorie" performance during the Eras Tour moved me in a way I didn't expect. Watching her take the stage to honor her grandmother, a woman who shaped her as an artist and a person, reminded me of the weight and beauty of generational legacy. As the audience lit up their phones and Swift's eyes filled with tears, I found myself crying too, not just for her loss, but for the intergenerational love and wisdom that flows through our families. I connected immediately with this moment because my own grandmother has been the backbone of my family's resilience. She survived addiction, cancer, and unspeakable trauma, and she refuses to be defined by any of it. Watching Swift honor her grandmother publicly reminded me that our elders' stories are not shameful, they are sacred. They are blueprints for survival and transformation. In "Marjorie," Swift doesn't just sing about missing someone, she sings about carrying their voice forward, about making sure their essence doesn't disappear from the world. That's what I hope to do as an educator. Taylor Swift's career itself is a masterclass in using your voice to tell your truth. She has reinvented herself multiple times, refusing to be boxed in by other people's expectations. She has been vulnerable about her heartbreaks, her growth, her mistakes, and her ambitions. In a world that tells women to be small and palatable, she has consistently chosen authenticity over comfort. This is the kind of educator I want to become. I want my students to see that being yourself, even when it's complicated or messy, is not weakness, it's power. What moves me most about Swift's work is her commitment to her fans and her community. She uses her platform to advocate for artists' rights, to celebrate her collaborators, and to create spaces where fans feel seen and valued. As a special education teacher, I want to model this same commitment to my students. I want them to know that their stories matter, that their voices deserve to be heard, and that they are not alone in their struggles. This scholarship represents an investment in an educator who believes in the transformative power of storytelling, authenticity, and generational healing. I am ready to take these lessons from Taylor Swift and translate them into a classroom where every student knows their value.

My journey to Lincoln University was not paved with financial certainty; it was built on a foundation of internal conviction and the unwavering belief that my hard work would eventually open the doors I needed. Growing up in a low-income neighborhood in New York as the daughter of a single teen mother, I knew early on that my family could not offer financial support for my education. The statistics were stacked against me, and higher education often felt like a distant dream rather than an achievable reality. When I looked at the cost of attendance, the numbers seemed impossible. But my mother raised me with a spirit of resilience and a "figureoutable" mindset that taught me to work with the intensity required to change my own circumstances. I faced the overwhelming obstacle of securing funding without a safety net. I remember sitting at our kitchen table, staring at tuition costs that far exceeded our income, and feeling a deep sense of uncertainty. In those moments, I had to rely on my own sense of purpose. I had to believe that the ambition and drive I felt were not misplaced. I committed myself to absolute academic excellence, trusting that if I did the work at the highest level, the resources would have to follow. I spent my high school years grinding for every grade, every extracurricular, and every opportunity, fueled by a faith in my own ability to disrupt the cycles of poverty I saw around me. That internal faith was rewarded when I earned a Presidential Scholarship to Lincoln University. It was the confirmation I needed that my dedication was working. Relying on this conviction meant surrendering the need to see the entire staircase before taking the first step. It meant having the confidence to move into a space where I didn't yet feel like I belonged, trusting that my preparation had made me worthy of the opportunity. When I finally arrived on Lincoln's campus, I knew it wasn't just luck that got me there. It was a combination of my mother’s resilience and my own refusal to let fear dictate my future. Today, as I prepare to graduate in May 2026 and transition into my Master's program at Temple University, this sense of mission remains my anchor. I plan to use my experiences to inspire others by modeling what it looks like to move forward even when the path isn't clear. In my future career as a special education teacher, I will encounter students who feel like the world has given up on them. I will use my conviction to see their potential when they cannot see it themselves, advocating for them with the same ferocity that I advocated for my own education. My legacy will be one of service and resilience, rooted in the belief that we have the power to build bridges for those coming after us. Just as I relied on my internal drive to get to Lincoln, I will rely on it to transform every classroom I enter.

I learned early in my high school and college career that using your voice is an act of resistance. Growing up in a low-income New York neighborhood, I watched how easily girls like me were expected to be quiet, compliant, and invisible. Speaking up meant risking being labeled as aggressive or difficult. But I also watched how powerful it became when someone broke that silence, when someone created space for others to do the same. During my work as an Ambassador for Justice for Black Girls, I experienced firsthand how voice and communication can transform a room. We were in a space designed for Black girls to feel safe and empowered, yet I noticed a young woman sitting quietly while her peers shared their stories and perspectives. She was surrounded by people who looked like her, who came from similar backgrounds, yet she was still struggling to speak. I realized in that moment that creating a space where people look like you is only part of the equation. You also need someone to actively invite them in, to validate their voice before they have the courage to use it. I approached her after the session and told her that her silence was not weakness, it was just caution. I shared some of my own experiences of being afraid to speak in spaces where I was supposed to belong. I told her that her voice mattered, that we needed to hear what she had to say, and that there was no rush. A few weeks later, at another gathering, she stood up and shared her story. She spoke about her struggles, her fears, and her dreams. The room listened. And in that moment, I understood the full power of what communication really means. Using your voice is not just about speaking. It is about speaking in a way that honors your truth and creates space for others to do the same. Throughout my organizing work with the Feminist Majority, my voter mobilization efforts, and my current preparation to become a special education teacher, I have learned that authentic communication requires vulnerability, patience, and intentionality. It means creating conditions where people feel safe enough to be heard. As a special education teacher, I plan to use my voice to advocate for students who are often silenced by systems that do not believe in their potential. I will speak up in staff meetings about inclusive practices. I will communicate with families in ways that center their expertise and perspectives. I will teach my students that their voices are not just welcome, they are necessary. I want to build a classroom where communication is celebrated as an act of courage and resistance. What I have learned about communication and confidence is that they are not individual qualities, they are collective ones. No one finds their voice alone. We find our voices when someone else validates us, when someone creates space for us, when someone says, your story matters. My hope is to spend my career being that person for young people who have been told to be quiet. I will use my voice to amplify theirs. This scholarship represents my commitment to that mission.

Education is important to me because it is the most transformative tool for disrupting generational cycles of poverty and systemic exclusion. As a first-generation college student raised by a teen mother in a low-income neighborhood in New York City, I understand intimately that education is not a luxury, it is a necessity for survival and advancement. Knowledge is a form of power that cannot be taken away, and it has provided me with the language to name the inequities I witness and the skills to strategically dismantle them. Education has been the foundation upon which I am building a life of stability, purpose, and lasting impact for myself and my family. Growing up without a parent who had navigated higher education meant that I had to forge my own path with limited guidance and considerable pressure. I became the navigator of my own academic journey, learning to advocate for myself in spaces where my background was not represented. This experience taught me that education is not just about academic achievement, it is about claiming space and demanding to be heard. Now, as I prepare for my Master's degree and my career as a special education teacher, I carry this understanding with me. I am pursuing education not just for personal advancement, but as a commitment to my community. The legacy I hope to leave is one of accessibility, compassion, and empowerment for students who have been systematically told that their learning differences, their trauma, or their zip codes define their potential. By becoming a special education teacher in Philadelphia, I am dedicating my life's work to ensuring that the next generation does not have to fight as hard as I did just to be seen, supported, and believed in. I want to build classrooms and advocate for systems where every child, regardless of their background or disability status, has access to trauma-informed, high-quality education that validates their complete humanity. Beyond the classroom walls, I want to leave a legacy of financial resilience and generational wealth building for my family. I am intentionally building savings and investing in my future because I want to prove that we can move from merely surviving to genuinely thriving. My legacy will be the doors I open for those coming after me, the barriers I dismantle, and the proof I provide that first-generation students can succeed and give back. I intend to mentor young women from my community, showing them that education is their pathway to freedom and that their potential is boundless. This scholarship represents an investment in that legacy and in the hundreds of students I will serve throughout my career.

I aspire to become a teacher because I witnessed firsthand how educators can either diminish or elevate a student's sense of possibility. Growing up in a low income New York neighborhood, I attended schools where teachers often operated from a deficit mindset, managing classrooms through compliance rather than inspiring minds with curiosity. But there were exceptions teachers who saw beyond my zip code and believed in my potential when my circumstances made it easy to give up. Those educators changed my trajectory and provided the stability I needed to become a first generation college student. Now, I am driven by the responsibility to be that same transformative force for someone else. My inspiration to teach, particularly in the realm of special education, stems from my unique blend of academic research and professional experience in high pressure environments. During my time working in the aviation industry, I operated within demanding, fast paced settings that required constant communication, adaptability, and emotional intelligence. I learned that people perform at their absolute best when they feel valued, supported, and understood. This professional principle applies equally to the classroom. I became committed to special education specifically because I recognized that students with disabilities often face the inverse of what they need; they receive punishment instead of patience, and labels instead of genuine possibility. My mission is to reverse this trend by bringing a professional, high stakes level of dedication to the classroom. I will use my diverse experiences to inspire others by modeling adaptability and radical empathy. Having spent a significant portion of my career in high stakes settings, I developed the ability to remain calm and focused under pressure, which is a critical quality for classroom management and student support. I will inspire my students by creating a sanctuary where mistakes are viewed as essential learning opportunities rather than evidence of failure. I want my students to understand that asking for help is a sign of strength and self awareness, not a weakness. By sharing my own journey of navigating career shifts and academic challenges, I will show them that a path to success is rarely a straight line, but it is always achievable with persistence. Additionally, I possess the quality of valuing feedback and continuous improvement, which I believe is vital for any effective educator. Throughout my academic career at Lincoln University and now as I prepare for my Master’s at Temple University, I have actively sought out mentorship and criticism to strengthen my practice. I will inspire my students by being transparent about my own growth process, showing them that learning is a lifelong commitment rather than a temporary task. By prioritizing collaborative problem solving, I will demonstrate to my students that they are part of a community that believes in their individual and collective potential. My plan to inspire others extends beyond the four walls of my classroom. I intend to become a vocal advocate for systemic change in special education, challenging the outdated practices that continue to segregate and marginalize students with disabilities. Through my graduate work and my future career in Philadelphia schools, I will inspire both my students and my colleagues to reimagine what truly inclusive, trauma informed education looks like. I believe that when an educator shows up with patience, professional adaptability, and an unwavering belief in student potential, they create the necessary conditions for total transformation. This scholarship will provide the support I need to become the high impact educator my community deserves.

I am passionate about special education because I have witnessed firsthand how systemic indifference can destroy a child's sense of self. Growing up in a low-income New York neighborhood, I attended schools where students with disabilities were warehoused in separate classrooms, stripped of their agency, and told implicitly that they were less than. I watched my peers with learning disabilities internalize messages of incompetence. I saw teachers who viewed special education as a burden rather than a calling. This is what drives my passion. I refuse to be a teacher who warehouses students. I will be a teacher who fights for their dignity, their potential, and their right to belong in mainstream spaces when they choose to be there. Special education is where systemic inequity becomes most visible. Students with disabilities, particularly Black and Brown students, are disproportionately placed in segregated classrooms, suspended at higher rates, and denied access to rigorous curriculum. The system is designed to lower expectations, not to unlock potential. I became passionate about changing this reality. My Master's degree in Special Education at Temple University is not just career preparation, it is a commitment to dismantling the school to prison pipeline that targets disabled students of color. Every classroom I build will be a space of resistance against a system that was never designed to serve us. Defining "Sense of One's Own Presence" Professor Harold Bloom writes that "the purpose of teaching is to bring the student to his or her sense of his or her own presence." To me, this means helping students recognize their inherent worth, their capacity to think critically, and their right to take up space in the world. For many students with disabilities, particularly those from marginalized communities, this sense of presence has been systematically denied. They have been told they are problems to be managed, deficits to be fixed, not human beings with gifts to offer. I define sense of one's own presence as a student's understanding that their thoughts matter, their voice deserves to be heard, and their existence in a space is valid and valuable. It is not about confidence in the traditional sense, but rather a deep recognition of one's humanity and one's right to contribute to collective knowledge and community. For a student with autism, presence might mean being able to communicate their needs without fear of punishment. For a student with a learning disability, it might mean understanding that their brain works differently, not wrongly. For a student dealing with trauma, it might mean knowing that their behavior is a response to systemic failure, not a personal failing. My Mission in Accomplishing This Task My mission is to create classrooms where students with disabilities experience their own presence as something sacred and inviolable. I will do this through three concrete practices. First, I will implement restorative justice circles where students are centered in problem solving rather than punished for behavior. Students will learn that their perspectives matter and that community cares about their well-being. Second, I will teach disability justice frameworks that validate neurodiversity and reject the notion that disabled students need to be fixed. Students will learn that their disabilities are not tragedies but rather different ways of processing and moving through the world. Third, I will create opportunities for students to lead and teach. When a student with intellectual disabilities helps a peer understand a concept, when a student with autism leads a classroom discussion about their special interests, when a student with an emotional disability facilitates a restorative circle, they are experiencing their own presence as something powerful and necessary. I will guide students to this sense of presence by believing in them first, before they believe in themselves. I will document their growth so they can see evidence of their own brilliance. I will create a classroom where mistakes are learning opportunities, not indictments of character. I will be the teacher I needed as a child, the one who saw my potential despite the systems telling me I was too much, the one who made me believe that my presence mattered. A Brief Fairy Tale Once upon a time, there was a young woman named Jada who discovered that she had a special gift: the ability to see the light in students others had written off as broken. She traveled to a kingdom called Philadelphia, where many young people with disabilities had been told they were less than human. Using the wisdom of her grandmother, the resilience of her mother, and the fury of her ancestors, Jada transformed her classroom into a sanctuary. Students who had learned to hate themselves began to recognize their own power. Students who had been silenced learned to speak. Students who believed they were stupid discovered they were brilliant. And Jada, the heroine of her own story, proved that love and justice were the most powerful forces in education. The end.

I plan to create a legacy as an entrepreneur by building a non-profit educational consultancy that dismantles barriers for families navigating special education systems in low-income communities. My business will be driven by ambition, purpose, and a commitment to changing the world for students and families who have been systematically failed by institutional neglect. As a first-generation college student from a low-income New York neighborhood, I am already demonstrating the drive and perseverance required to overcome obstacles and create meaningful change. My entrepreneurial vision stems directly from my lived experience. Parents in low-income neighborhoods often lack the knowledge, time, and advocacy tools to fight for their children's rights. They accept inadequate services because they do not know they have options. This systemic gap is where my business will shine. I envision creating an organization that provides free IEP consultation, legal advocacy support, and personalized education plans for families in Philadelphia who cannot afford private consultants. My business will democratize access to the expertise that wealthy families take for granted. What makes me an exceptional candidate for this scholarship is that I am not just dreaming about entrepreneurship in the abstract. I am already demonstrating entrepreneurial thinking through my research, organizing work, and strategic planning. During my undergraduate years at Lincoln University, I conducted independent research on mental health disparities at HBCUs, identifying a market gap in culturally competent mental health resources for Black students. Through my work with Justice for Black Girls, I have built grassroots networks, mobilized community members, and created sustainable advocacy structures that operate on limited resources. These are the exact skills required to launch and sustain a non-profit in under-resourced communities. My pursuit of a Master's degree in Special Education at Temple University is a deliberate stepping stone toward this entrepreneurial goal. Graduate school will deepen my knowledge of special education law, trauma-informed pedagogy, and systemic inequities while positioning me as a credible voice for families. I will use my time in graduate school to build relationships with other educators, legal advocates, and community organizers who share my vision. By the time I complete my degree, I will have the credentials, network, and expertise necessary to launch my consultancy with integrity and effectiveness. This scholarship represents an investment in an entrepreneur who is committed to creating a legacy of justice and accessibility. I am not starting from a place of privilege or inherited resources. I am building something from nothing, fueled by the determination I learned from my mother and the urgency I feel for communities like my own. Every obstacle I have faced has strengthened my resolve and sharpened my vision. I will launch my business. I will serve families who need me. And I will prove that entrepreneurship is not just about individual wealth accumulation, it is about structural change and collective liberation. This scholarship will support that mission.

A meaningful relationship that has profoundly shaped who I am today is the one I share with my mother. Growing up in a low income New York neighborhood as the daughter of a teen mother, I watched her navigate the world with a resilience that prioritized human connection over material scarcity. My mother did not have a traditional support network or a college degree to rely on, but she had an incredible ability to build authentic relationships with people from all walks of life. She taught me that your network is not just about professional advancement, it is about the genuine community you build through empathy, integrity, and mutual support. This relationship has fundamentally influenced the way I build connections with others, particularly in my advocacy work and my future career as an educator. My mother showed me that building a meaningful connection requires seeing the whole person, not just their circumstances. She taught me that every person has a story worth hearing and that vulnerability is the gateway to authentic community. When I was organizing with Justice for Black Girls or conducting my undergraduate research on mental health disparities at Lincoln University, I approached every interaction with the same intentionality my mother modeled. I learned that to truly connect with someone, especially those who have been marginalized by systemic inequity, you must first validate their humanity and listen to their story without judgment. My mother's approach to relationships taught me that connection is built on consistency and care, not just charisma or convenience. She was the person who showed up for her community even when she had nothing material to offer. She checked in on neighbors, advocated for other mothers in similar situations, and created informal support networks when formal systems failed us. Watching her build these connections taught me that relationships are not transactional. They are investments in collective well being. In my professional goals as a special education teacher in Philadelphia, human connection is the foundation of everything I hope to achieve. Students in special education are often isolated by labels and lowered expectations. My goal is to build a classroom environment where connection is a radical act of inclusion. I want my students to feel a sense of belonging that allows them to take risks and grow without fear of judgment. By building strong relationships with my students and their families, I am creating a partnership that advocates for their success both inside and outside the classroom. Furthermore, my personal long term goals are centered on community building beyond the walls of my classroom. I do not just want to succeed individually; I want to be part of a resilient network of advocates who are working toward collective liberation. My mother's example taught me that no one succeeds alone. We are all products of the people who believed in us when we didn't believe in ourselves. I am committed to being that person for my students, my peers, and my community. Whether in a romantic, personal, or professional context, I believe that authentic connection is the only way to dismantle the barriers that seek to divide us. It requires vulnerability, consistency, and a deep commitment to the well being of others. My mother raised me to understand that our lives are defined by the quality of our relationships and the depth of our compassion. As I move forward into my graduate studies and my teaching career, I am carrying that lesson with me, building connections that honor the people who shaped me and uplift the people I am called to serve. This is the legacy of connection I intend to build for the rest of my life.

Mental health is fundamental to my journey as a student because I have seen how psychological well-being directly impacts academic success or failure. As a first-generation student from a low-income New York neighborhood, I navigated higher education while managing the compounded stressors of financial instability and the pressure to succeed for my family. This lived experience taught me that mental health is not just an individual concern, but a structural one. Students cannot perform at their highest level if they are battling anxiety, trauma, or depression without adequate support systems that understand their specific cultural backgrounds and lived realities. I advocate for mental health in my community through my academic research and direct advocacy work. During my undergraduate years at Lincoln University, I conducted an independent study with Dr. Michael Lynch examining how social media use and cyber-racial-trauma impact the mental health of HBCU students. This research allowed me to name a problem that many in my community experience but few have the language to describe. By presenting my findings, I advocated for more culturally competent mental health resources within institutional frameworks that often overlook the unique stressors faced by Black and Brown students navigating predominantly white academic spaces. My work with Justice for Black Girls allows me to advocate for the emotional well-being of young Black women who are often expected to be strong at the expense of their own mental health. I help create spaces where vulnerability is celebrated and where young women are encouraged to prioritize their healing without shame. Through this organizing work, I learned that mental health advocacy requires creating a genuine sense of community, not just individual therapy. It is about validating each other's experiences and recognizing that our struggles are often responses to systemic oppression rather than personal weakness. As a future special education teacher in Philadelphia, I will continue this advocacy by building trauma-informed classrooms that prioritize student wellness alongside academic achievement. Students in special education are disproportionately marginalized and labeled, which can lead to profound feelings of isolation and hopelessness. I intend to teach my students that their mental health matters and that their struggles are responses to systemic inequity, not personal failures. By implementing restorative practices and creating space for emotional expression, I am giving them the tools to navigate a world that often seeks to diminish their humanity. Mental health advocacy is inseparable from my mission as an educator. I believe that when we prioritize the psychological well-being of marginalized students, we are not just helping them survive, we are helping them thrive and unlock their full potential.

Being raised in a single parent household by a teen mother in a low income New York neighborhood was the most defining experience of my life. My mother's impact on me cannot be overstated; she was my first example of what it looks like to do good in the face of systemic adversity. She navigated a world that sought to limit her potential, yet she never allowed those limitations to reach me. She worked tirelessly to ensure that my background as a first generation student was a source of pride rather than shame. Her selflessness and perseverance provided the blueprint for my own ambitions, teaching me that the true measure of a life is how much you invest in the liberation and well-being of others. Growing up, I watched my mother show up every single day despite facing barriers that would have broken many people. She did not have a college degree to guide her. She did not have a safety net to fall back on. What she had was an unshakeable commitment to doing right by me and by our family. She modeled what it means to keep moving forward even when the system tells you that you are not enough. She taught me that doing good is not always glamorous, but it is always necessary. She showed me that strength is not the absence of struggle, but the willingness to struggle in service of something bigger than yourself. This upbringing directly impacted my future goals by instilling in me a deep sense of accountability to my community. I saw the gaps in the system where families like mine were left to fend for themselves. I pursued my undergraduate degree at Lincoln University to understand the systems that had marginalized my family. I am now pursuing a Master's in Special Education at Temple University because I want to directly intervene in the lives of young people before they are written off by the system. I am not just getting an education for my own advancement; I am getting it to honor my mother's sacrifices and to help people navigating the same barriers we faced. In the future, I will use my talents for community organizing and empathetic teaching to do good by dismantling the school to prison pipeline. As a special education teacher in Philadelphia, I will work with students who are most marginalized and misunderstood by the educational system. I will create classrooms where students feel safe, seen, and valued for their whole selves. I want to build a future where every young person, regardless of family structure or zip code, has an advocate who believes in their potential unconditionally. By providing restorative justice and trauma informed support, I am helping my students write their own stories of success. Ultimately, being raised by a single mother taught me that doing good is a radical act of resistance against systems designed to destroy us. It taught me that we have a responsibility to pull as we climb and never forget where we came from. My future goal is to be the kind of educator and leader who makes my mother proud by dedicating my life to the service of others. I will use my education and lived experience to ensure that the next generation of students from underserved communities has the support they need to dream big and rise higher. This is the legacy of care that my mother started, and it is the sacred work I am honored to continue.

I will use my unique talents for community organizing and academic research to build a more empathetic and understanding global community by centering the voices of those who have been systematically marginalized and excluded from decision making spaces. As a first generation college student from a low income New York neighborhood, I have experienced firsthand how a lack of empathy in institutional systems can lead to the criminalization and exclusion of brilliant young people. My background in criminal justice and my work with Justice for Black Girls have given me the skills to identify these systemic failures, while my undergraduate research on mental health disparities has given me the tools to propose human centered solutions rooted in compassion. Through my research at Lincoln University with Dr. Michael Lynch, I examined how Black and Brown students navigate digital spaces while managing racial trauma and institutional pressures. This work taught me that empathy requires us to understand the structural context in which people's struggles exist. It is not enough to feel bad for someone's pain. True empathy requires us to examine the systems that created that pain in the first place. This understanding transformed how I approach my role as an emerging educator and advocate. My work with Justice for Black Girls further deepened my commitment to building empathetic communities. Through organizing around issues affecting Black girls and young women, I learned that empathy is a practice, not a feeling. It requires consistent effort to show up for people, to listen to their stories without judgment, and to take action in solidarity with their struggles. I learned that when we build movements rooted in empathy, we create space for healing and transformation that goes beyond individual support. In my career as a special education teacher in Philadelphia, I will practice empathy as a radical act of resistance against the school to prison pipeline. I will build classrooms where students with disabilities and from underserved backgrounds are seen for their potential rather than their perceived deficits. By using restorative practices and trauma informed care, I am teaching my students how to build an empathetic community for themselves. I am committed to creating spaces where every student's humanity is recognized and where their struggles are understood within the context of systemic inequity rather than individual failure. My unique talent for seeing the humanity in people, combined with my skills in research and organizing, allows me to bridge the gap between academic understanding and community action. I can help people understand not just what is happening in their communities, but why it is happening and how they can work together to change it. This is the foundation of empathy that builds global understanding. I am committed to a lifetime of building more empathetic and understanding communities. Whether I am teaching in a classroom, organizing in my neighborhood, or researching issues that affect marginalized populations, I am always working to expand people's capacity to see each other with compassion and to act in solidarity. By pursuing education and using my talents for community transformation, I am helping to create a world where understanding is not a luxury for some, but a fundamental right for every person, regardless of their background, ability, or circumstances. This is how I will use my education to foster a more compassionate global society that values every life and every voice.

The person who has profoundly impacted my life and helped me realize my full potential is my mother. Growing up in a low income New York neighborhood as the daughter of a teen mother, I was raised by a woman who refused to let my circumstances define my future. My mother personifies the same hard work and resilience that Sharen Kohute represented. She navigated systemic barriers with grace and worked tirelessly to ensure that I had every opportunity to succeed, even when resources were scarce and the odds were stacked against us. Her belief in me was the catalyst that allowed me to become the first in my family to pursue a college degree. My mother's impact went beyond emotional support. She provided me with a blueprint for resilience and a practical mindset that anything is figureoutable if you are willing to work for it. She taught me that potential is only unlocked through persistent effort and a refusal to accept lowered expectations from myself or from the world. She worked multiple jobs to keep us afloat, and yet she never made me feel like a burden. Instead, she made me feel like an investment. She showed me that being a teen mother did not mean her dreams had to die, it just meant she had to dream bigger for both of us. Because of my mother's unwavering support and belief in my potential, I graduated from Lincoln University and am now pursuing a Master's in Special Education at Temple University. She helped me realize that my background was not a deficit to overcome, but a source of strength that I could use to advocate for others facing similar circumstances. Her investment in my potential is the reason I am dedicated to serving students in Philadelphia who face obstacles similar to the ones she navigated. My mother embodies the principle that this scholarship honors: that potential exists in every person, regardless of their family situation or background. She showed me that hard work, integrity, and a refusal to give up can transform a life. I am living proof of that formula, and I am driven to pay it forward to the next generation of first generation scholars. I honor my mother's legacy by pursuing a career where I can be the advocate for my students that she was for me. I believe that a single meaningful connection combined with consistent support and high expectations can change a life's trajectory. Every student I teach will know that I see their potential, that I believe in their capacity to succeed, and that I am committed to helping them unlock the greatness that already exists within them. This is how I will honor Sharen and Mila Kohute's memory and my mother's sacrifice.

I want to build a career that serves as a bridge between systemic inequity and individual liberation. To me, building means creating sustainable systems of support for people the world has overlooked. As a first generation college student from a low-income New York neighborhood, I navigated systems built to exclude me. Now I am committed to building new ones intentionally designed for inclusion, particularly for students in special education. I am building a future as a special education teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. My commitment is to build classrooms that function as safe havens for students disproportionately affected by the school to prison pipeline. I want to build a curriculum that prioritizes self advocacy and social emotional wellness alongside academic achievement. By building authentic relationships with my students and their families, I create a foundation of trust that allows genuine learning and growth to happen. This work will make a positive impact on my community by proving that perceived limitations of marginalized youth are actually just a lack of adequate support and resources. When I build up a student's confidence in themselves, I impact their family and their entire neighborhood in ways that ripple outward. I am building a legacy of resilience and achievement that honors my mother, who raised me with grace as a teen parent, and my grandmother, who survived addiction and cancer with her dignity intact. Every single student I help succeed is another brick in the foundation of a more equitable society. I am not just building a career for myself, I am building a future where every young person has the resources they need to thrive regardless of their background or circumstances. My education has given me the tools to understand systemic inequity at a deep level. Now I will use those tools to dismantle barriers and create pathways for the next generation of students. This is how I will build meaningful change in my community and beyond.

My understanding of mental health and suicide prevention is rooted in both my lived experience and my academic research. Growing up in a low-income New York neighborhood, I witnessed how mental health struggles were often stigmatized, ignored, or criminalized rather than treated with the care they required. I saw the way generational trauma, systemic poverty, and a lack of accessible resources created a heavy psychological burden on my community. This personal background led me to conduct undergraduate research at Lincoln University, where I specifically examined the intersection of social media use and mental health challenges among HBCU students. Through my independent study with Dr. Michael Lynch, I explored how Black and Brown students navigate digital spaces while managing racial trauma and institutional pressures. My research revealed that students from marginalized backgrounds face compounded psychological stressors, including what scholars call cyber-racial-trauma. I discovered that online racial discrimination and cyberbullying are not just digital nuisances; they are significant drivers of anxiety, depression, and in the most tragic cases, suicidal ideation. This gap between the severe psychological needs of students and the lack of culturally competent institutional support is a crisis that I am committed to addressing. I have seen the impact of mental health challenges within my own family. My grandmother is a recovered addict and cancer survivor who had to overcome immense psychological hurdles at a time when resources for Black women were nearly non-existent. My mother, navigating life as a teen parent, had to maintain incredible mental resilience in the face of systemic barriers. Their strength taught me that mental health is not just about individual therapy, but about structural advocacy and community support. It is about creating environments where people feel seen, heard, and valued before they reach a point of crisis. My plan to make a positive impact is focused on the classroom. As a future special education teacher in Philadelphia, I will be working with students who are often the most vulnerable to mental health disparities. Students in special education are frequently marginalized and labeled, which can lead to profound feelings of isolation and hopelessness. I intend to implement trauma-informed practices that prioritize student wellness alongside academic achievement. I will create a classroom culture where mental health is openly discussed, where students are taught self-advocacy skills, and where they understand that their struggles are a response to their environment rather than a personal failure. Ultimately, I believe that preventing suicide and supporting mental health requires a radical commitment to human connection. It requires us to dismantle the systems that create trauma and to build new systems that foster healing. My research and my personal journey have taught me that we must meet people where they are, validate their pain, and provide them with the resources to see a future for themselves. I am dedicated to being an educator who sees the whole student, recognizing that their mental well-being is the foundation of everything else they will achieve. By breaking the silence around mental health in underserved communities, I hope to honor the memory of those we have lost by protecting the lives of those still fighting.

I would create a challenge called "The Vulnerability Test," a competition designed to measure emotional intelligence, authenticity, and the capacity to build genuine human connection under pressure. In this challenge, contestants would be paired with someone they have never met before and given fifteen minutes to have a real conversation about their deepest fear or insecurity. The person listening would then have to help the other person work through that fear by asking clarifying questions, offering perspective, and ultimately naming one strength they see in that person that contradicts their fear. After the conversation, both people would swap roles. The couple who demonstrates the most authentic vulnerability, the deepest listening, and the most meaningful support for each other would win immunity. This challenge appeals to me because it strips away all the performative aspects of reality television and gets to the core of what actually matters in human relationships: the ability to be seen, heard, and valued for your whole self, including your pain. In a show that often prioritizes physical attraction and surface-level connection, this challenge would force people to build intimacy through vulnerability rather than through flirtation or competition. It would reveal who actually has the emotional capacity to show up for another person and who is just there for the Instagram followers. I would design this challenge specifically because I have spent my entire life learning that vulnerability is not weakness, it is the foundation of real connection. Growing up as the daughter of a teen mother in a low-income neighborhood, I watched my mother be vulnerable about her struggles while still maintaining her dignity and strength. My grandmother survived homicide in her family, addiction, and cancer, and her vulnerability about her journey became her greatest teaching tool for the next generation. Through my work with Justice for Black Girls and my undergraduate research on mental health at HBCUs, I learned that Black women are often expected to be strong to the point of silence. We are taught that expressing our pain is burdensome, that our struggles are less legitimate because we are supposed to have already overcome them. This challenge would directly challenge that narrative. It would say that the strongest people are the ones brave enough to admit what scares them. It would celebrate the people who can hold space for someone else's pain without trying to fix it immediately. It would prioritize emotional labor as a form of strength rather than as weakness. Moreover, this challenge would be particularly powerful on a show that primarily features Black contestants, because it would create space for Black women to be vulnerable in a way that mainstream media rarely allows. We would see sisters holding each other through their fears. We would see Black love not just as romance but as a radical act of care and support. We would see the kind of community building that actually happens in our culture when we are brave enough to show our whole selves to each other. If I competed in this challenge, I would be completely honest about my deepest fear: the fear that my success might still not be enough to change the trajectory of my community, that I could do everything right and still not make the impact I dream of making. I would want my partner to help me see that my fear itself is evidence of my commitment, and that showing up every single day as an educator who believes in her students is already changing lives. That vulnerability would be my strength.

I became a fan of Sabrina Carpenter during my childhood watching Girl Meets World, where she played Riley Matthews, a character who embodied curiosity, compassion, and resilience in the face of adversity. What captivated me was not just her acting talent, but her entire trajectory as a young woman in entertainment. Sabrina has consistently used her platform to break barriers, challenge societal expectations of what young women should be, and leverage her influence for social good. Her career has impacted me profoundly because it showed me that excellence in your field is not just about individual achievement, it is about using that platform to uplift others and advocate for systemic change. Throughout her career, Sabrina has refused to be boxed into a single lane. She started as an actress on a Disney show, but she did not stop there. She became a singer, releasing multiple albums that showcase her artistic growth and vulnerability. She ventured into production and directing, taking control of her creative narrative. She has been outspoken about mental health, body image, and the pressures young women face in the entertainment industry. What strikes me most is that she does all of this while maintaining an authentic connection with her fanbase. She does not perform feminism as a trend, she lives it. She advocates for causes she believes in and uses her platform responsibly. As a first-generation college student from a low-income background, I found inspiration in watching Sabrina navigate her career with intention and integrity. She could have taken the easy route, remained a Disney star, and coasted on that success. Instead, she challenged herself to grow, to expand her artistry, and to use her influence for something bigger than herself. This mirrors my own journey. I could have pursued a career that simply pays the bills, but I chose to pursue special education because I believe in transformation and social justice. Sabrina's approach to breaking barriers has directly influenced how I think about my own career goals. She has shown me that you do not have to choose between being successful and being authentic. You do not have to abandon your values to advance professionally. In fact, the most powerful careers are built on integrity and accountability. As I transition into my role as a special education teacher, I am carrying Sabrina's example with me. I will be an educator who breaks barriers for my students, who challenges the systems that marginalize them, and who uses my platform in the classroom to advocate for change. Her career trajectory also demonstrates that impact is not limited to one field. Sabrina works in entertainment, but her influence extends to mental health advocacy, gender justice, and the treatment of young women in the industry. Similarly, my impact as a teacher will extend beyond the classroom. I will organize in my community, advocate for policy change, and use my voice to dismantle the school-to-prison pipeline. I am a superfan of Sabrina Carpenter because she embodies the kind of woman I aspire to be: talented, intentional, authentic, and committed to using her gifts for collective liberation. Her career has taught me that breaking barriers is not just about personal success, it is about opening doors for everyone who comes after you. That is the legacy I hope to create through my work in education.

Education has been the primary vehicle through which I have redefined my sense of direction and reclaimed my future. Growing up in a low-income New York neighborhood as the daughter of a teen mother, my path was not paved with easy opportunities. I was raised in an environment where the systemic odds were stacked against me. In my community, often labeled "the projects," the prevailing narrative for young people was one of limitation rather than possibility. We were often told what we could not do before we were ever asked what we dreamed of doing. However, my education provided a different story. It gave me the tools to understand that my circumstances were not my identity and that my voice possessed the power to challenge the systems that sought to marginalize me. The challenges I have overcome are rooted deeply in the financial and psychological pressures of being a first-generation college student. When I arrived at Lincoln University, I was carrying the hopes of an entire family on my shoulders. My grandmother is a recovered addict and cancer survivor who overcame seemingly impossible odds. My mother worked tirelessly to keep us afloat. Their resilience was my foundation, but it also created an immense pressure to succeed immediately and without error. I navigated my undergraduate years while managing significant financial instability. There were semesters where I did not know if I could afford to register for the next term. I faced food insecurity and the constant, quiet stress of lacking a financial safety net. While many of my peers could focus solely on their academics, I had to balance my studies with the survival economics of being a low-income student. Beyond the financial struggle, I faced the challenge of imposter syndrome. In academic spaces, I sometimes questioned if I truly belonged. I wondered if my background, my dialect, or my life experiences made me less of a scholar. It was my education itself that helped me overcome this. Through my coursework in criminal justice and my independent research on mental health at HBCUs, I learned that my perspective was not a deficit. It was a lens that was desperately needed in the field. I realized that my lived experience gave me insights into systemic inequity that could not be taught in a textbook. This shift in perspective was transformative. It gave me a clear sense of direction: I was not just getting a degree for a paycheck. I was getting a degree to become an advocate. My education has shaped my specific goal of becoming a special education teacher because I want to be for my students what my advocates were for me. I witnessed my nephew struggle with a speech delay and saw how critical early intervention and patient, specialized support were for his development. I also saw how easily students like him could be written off by a system that refuses to understand their unique needs. I learned that students in special education, particularly Black and Brown students, are disproportionately funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline. They are often labeled as "behavioral problems" rather than being given the resources they need to thrive. My education gave me the language to name this injustice, and it gave me the skills to fight it. I am now using my Master's in Special Education from Temple University to create a better future by directly dismantling this pipeline. I intend to provide my students with the same radical belief and high expectations that allowed me to transcend my own circumstances. In my future classroom in the School District of Philadelphia, I will implement restorative justice practices instead of punitive discipline. I will focus on social-emotional learning that honors the resilience of my students. I want to build a space where a student's zip code does not determine their destiny and where their learning differences are met with compassion rather than criminalization. Ultimately, I hope to use my education to prove that excellence is not a product of privilege but a result of opportunity and support. By serving students in underserved communities, I will be a visible example of what is possible when resilience meets advocacy. I want to create a future where every student, regardless of their background, has the resources to dream big and the educational support to rise higher. My journey is proof that when we invest in the potential of marginalized youth, we are not just changing individual lives. We are transforming the community as a whole. My education has allowed me to rewrite my own story, and now I am dedicated to helping the next generation write theirs.

I am pursuing a career in teaching because I believe the classroom is the most significant site for social transformation. Growing up in a low-income neighborhood in New York as the daughter of a teen mother, I saw firsthand how the educational system often functions as a gatekeeper rather than a gateway. I watched brilliant peers get pushed out of school because they lacked an advocate who understood their lived experiences. My decision to enter Special Education is rooted in the belief that every student deserves an educator who refuses to accept anything less than their full potential. My interest in teaching was deeply influenced by my experience as a first-generation college student at Lincoln University. In that environment, I saw the power of educators who looked like me and shared my background. They did not just teach content. They mentored my whole humanity. They validated my voice in rooms where I had previously felt silenced and taught me that my history was a source of strength rather than a deficit. This experience showed me that a passionate educator can be the difference between a student surviving the system and a student thriving within it. One impactful teacher who changed my trajectory was my criminal justice professor at Lincoln University. During a time when I was struggling with financial instability and questioning my place in higher education, they did not just offer academic advice. They offered genuine visibility and care. They recognized the unique pressures I was under as a first-generation student from an underserved community and reminded me that my perspective was essential to the field. They held me to high standards while providing the grace and mentorship I desperately needed to navigate college. Their belief in me was the catalyst that allowed me to maintain a strong GPA and eventually pursue my Master's through the Teaching Residency program at Temple University. Through my work with Justice for Black Girls and the Feminist Majority Foundation, I discovered that teaching and organizing are inseparable. Both require building community, meeting people where they are, and believing in collective liberation. My organizing experience taught me that education is not neutral. Every classroom is either working to maintain the status quo or working to transform it. I choose transformation. I choose to be an educator who uses the classroom as a space for students to reclaim their humanity. As a special education teacher, I plan to be the advocate I wish I had earlier in my journey. I will work specifically with students who are disproportionately criminalized and marginalized by the school-to-prison pipeline. I will build my classroom on a foundation of authentic human connection and self-advocacy. By empowering my students to understand their rights and recognize their own brilliance, I am teaching them how to navigate the systems that were not designed for their success. I am driven to teach because I know the cost of an absent advocate. I have seen the way students are written off when their needs are misunderstood. My career in education is a lifelong commitment to ensuring that no student in my classroom ever feels invisible or incapable. I will honor the legacy of passionate educators like Marie Humphries by devoting my life to the next generation, proving every single day that with the right support, every student can write their own powerful story of achievement.

My undergraduate research at Lincoln University centered on social media use and mental health challenges among HBCU students, specifically examining how Black and Brown students navigate digital spaces while managing racial trauma and institutional pressures. Through my independent study with Dr. Michael Lynch, I explored the intersection of cyberbullying, online racial discrimination, and psychological well-being within historically Black college communities. This research taught me that mental health is not merely individual, but deeply structural. It revealed that students from marginalized backgrounds face compounded psychological stressors that go unseen and often unaddressed by traditional mental health frameworks. Growing up in a low-income New York neighborhood, I witnessed how mental health struggles were stigmatized and criminalized in my community. My grandmother is a recovered addict and cancer survivor who overcame seemingly impossible odds through sheer determination and community support. My mother, a teen parent, navigated systemic barriers while maintaining her own mental resilience. These lived experiences shaped my understanding that mental health advocacy is inseparable from social justice work. When I conducted my research on social media and mental health disparities, I wasn't just analyzing data, I was honoring the struggles of people who looked like me and had been failed by a system that prioritizes profit over healing. Through my research, I learned that addressing mental health requires meeting people where they are, listening to their stories, and validating their experiences within the context of systemic oppression. I discovered that many HBCU students experience what scholars call cyber-racial trauma, yet institutional responses remain minimal and fragmented. This gap between student need and institutional support motivated me to pursue a Master's in Special Education, where I can directly intervene in the lives of young people before they internalize the trauma that my community experiences daily. I plan to make a positive impact on the world through a career rooted in mental health advocacy and educational equity. As a future special education teacher, I will create classrooms that honor students' emotional experiences alongside their academic development. I will implement trauma informed practices that recognize how systemic oppression manifests in students' psychological well-being. I will teach students to name their experiences, to understand that their struggles are not personal failures but responses to structural violence, and to recognize their own resilience as a form of resistance. My advice to someone facing mental health challenges is this: your feelings are valid, your experiences are real, and you are not alone. Seek community rather than shame, choose people over perfection, and remember that healing is not linear. If I could speak to my younger self or anyone struggling, I would say that the systems designed to break you are not stronger than your will to survive. Your pain is political, your resilience is revolutionary, and your voice matters in spaces that were never built to listen to you. Find your people, name your truth, and know that the work of reclaiming your mental health is the work of reclaiming your power.

Attending Lincoln University as a first-generation college student from a low-income New York background was transformative in ways I could not have anticipated before stepping foot on campus. Growing up in the projects where few people pursued higher education, I didn't fully understand what an HBCU was or what it could mean for my life. What I discovered at Lincoln was far more profound than just a college degree. I found a community that centered Black excellence, a space where my existence wasn't seen as exceptional despite my socioeconomic circumstances, and an institution filled with faculty and staff who actively invested in my success as a Black woman from an underserved community. Lincoln University became the foundation for everything I have accomplished since and fundamentally shaped how I understand my own potential. What Lincoln University meant to me was safety, belonging, and possibility in a way I had never experienced before arriving on campus. It meant being in classrooms surrounded by Black professors who understood the specific pressures of being first-generation, who had walked similar paths themselves, and who genuinely invested in my intellectual development and personal growth. For the first time in my life, I saw myself reflected in positions of academic authority. My criminal justice courses taught me about systemic inequities, but my professors also showed me that education could be a tool for liberation rather than control. They encouraged me to think critically about the systems that had marginalized my own family. Being at Lincoln meant being in a space where Blackness was celebrated rather than questioned, where my intelligence was assumed rather than doubted, and where my voice was actively sought out in classroom discussions. This was revolutionary for someone who had been told her whole life that her neighborhood, her family structure, and her circumstances made her less worthy of intellectual spaces. My involvement at Lincoln extended beyond the classroom. I was part of student organizations that centered Black community building and social justice. I participated in discussions about equity and representation on campus. I watched my peers, young Black women and men from similar backgrounds as mine, thrive in an environment designed to uplift us. I learned that education rooted in cultural affirmation produces different outcomes than education rooted in deficit-based thinking. This realization became the driving force behind my career goals. I understood that if a school centered me, believed in me, and invested in me, I could achieve at levels I previously thought impossible. I wanted that same experience for other young people, especially those facing the most systemic barriers. Attending Lincoln University demonstrated the immense power of institutional culture. When schools are intentional about centering marginalized students, students don't just survive, we thrive. We build confidence, we discover our voices, we understand our potential. This is exactly what I want to create as a special education teacher. I will return to underserved communities like mine and work with students with disabilities who are disproportionately criminalized and pushed out of school. I will create classrooms that affirm their identities, that center their brilliance, and that refuse to accept lowered expectations. I will be the educator who fights for them the way Lincoln's faculty fought for me. My plan to make a difference for my family and community is rooted in dismantling the school-to-prison pipeline through transformative special education. I will honor Lincoln's legacy by creating educational spaces that celebrate Black and Brown student excellence, validate student experience, and actively dismantle barriers to success. Every student I teach will have an educator who believes in them unconditionally, because I know the difference that belief makes when you come from nothing.

Growing up in the projects of New York, I faced adversity from my first breath. My mother was a teen parent navigating a system designed to fail her, and I was born into a cycle of poverty that could have easily defined my entire trajectory. My grandmother had already survived homicide in her family, addiction, and cancer. Yet instead of being defeated by these compounded adversities, she chose resilience. My mother inherited that strength and passed it on to me. Adversity was not something that happened to my family, it was something we had learned to move through with dignity and determination. The most significant adversity I faced was the ever present threat of financial instability during my college years. While my peers at Lincoln University had family safety nets and financial cushions, I was working while studying, managing food insecurity, and constantly navigating the psychological toll of being first-generation. There were moments when I questioned whether I belonged in academic spaces designed for people with more privilege. There were nights when I couldn't afford certain meals or when I had to choose between buying textbooks and paying for transportation to school. These weren't abstract hardships; they were daily reminders that the system was not built with me in mind. I overcame this adversity by refusing to internalize the narrative that poverty was my fault or my limitation. I sought mentorship from organizations like Justice for Black Girls and the Feminist Majority Foundation, where I found community with people who understood my struggle. I learned that my circumstances were not a reflection of my capability, but rather a reflection of systemic inequity. This reframing transformed my relationship with adversity. Instead of seeing myself as the problem, I began to see the system as the problem, and that shift gave me the motivation to pursue higher education and organize for change. This adversity has shaped me into a person who refuses to accept lowered expectations, who advocates fiercely for those facing similar barriers, and who is committed to dismantling the systems that created my struggle in the first place. I now pursue a Master's in Special Education so that I can be for other young people what my mentors were for me during my hardest moments. My advice to someone facing similar adversity is this: your struggle is not your identity, and your circumstances do not determine your destiny. Build community with people who believe in you and who understand the structural nature of your obstacles. Question the narratives that blame you for systemic failure. Seek mentorship from people who have survived what you are surviving. Remember that resilience is not quiet acceptance of injustice, but active resistance to systems that want you to fail. Your adversity can become your greatest strength if you refuse to let it break your spirit.

I am a resilient and growth-driven individual whose personal journey has been defined by a commitment to advocacy and educational equity. Growing up in a low-income neighborhood in New York as the daughter of a teen mother, I learned early on that systemic barriers are often used to limit the potential of brilliant young people. As the first person in my family to pursue a college degree, I have navigated the challenges of being a first-generation student with integrity and accountability, eventually graduating from Lincoln University. My lived experience has reinforced my belief that every child deserves an advocate who refuses to accept lowered expectations for them. My passion for the special needs community is both personal and professional. I saw firsthand how critical early intervention and advocacy are when helping my nephew navigate a speech delay. Watching him struggle to find his voice, and seeing the difference that patient, specialized support made in his development, deeply impacted me. It made me realize how many students are left behind simply because they lack the necessary resources or an educator who truly understands their unique needs. This experience, combined with my community organizing background with Justice for Black Girls and the Feminist Majority Foundation, has led me to pursue a Master’s in Special Education at Temple University. I plan to make a positive social impact by serving as a special education teacher in the School District of Philadelphia. My goal is to work specifically with students who are at risk of being funneled into the school-to-prison pipeline a system that disproportionately affects students with special needs and those from marginalized backgrounds. I intend to create a classroom environment rooted in restorative practices rather than punitive measures, ensuring that my students learn self-advocacy skills alongside their academic curriculum. I want to empower them to understand their rights and to recognize their own capacity for success, regardless of the labels society may place on them. Ultimately, my career serving those with special needs is about more than just classroom instruction; it is about social justice. I am committed to a lifetime of service dedicated to dismantling the inequities that make our society inaccessible for those with unique needs. By building authentic relationships with my students and their families, I will provide the same radical belief and support that my mother and mentors provided for me. I am driven to prove that with the right advocacy and specialized support, every student can write their own powerful story of achievement and purpose. I will honor the legacy of advocates who came before me by being the champion my students need to thrive.

Leadership through service is the belief that true power comes from empowering others and that the most effective leaders are those willing to do the work alongside their community. My volunteering and organizing experience has been centered on this principle, particularly through my work with the Feminist Majority Foundation and Justice for Black Girls. During my time as a Campus Coordinator with the Feminist Majority Foundation, I organized voter mobilization events designed to engage students in the democratic process and advocate for gender justice. This involved not just high-level planning, but the hands-on work of connecting with individuals, answering their questions, and ensuring they had the resources needed to make their voices heard. I learned that true organizing is about meeting people where they are and building the infrastructure for them to take action themselves. I believe that leadership through service is important because it builds trust and fosters authentic human connection, which are the foundations of any successful social movement. When you lead by serving, you are showing your community that their needs are your priority and that you are committed to the collective good rather than personal recognition. This approach has been instrumental in my journey as a first-generation college student growing up in a low-income New York neighborhood. I have witnessed how much impact a single person can have when they dedicate their time to uplifting others, and it has driven me to pursue a career in Special Education where I can continue this work in the classroom. My volunteer experience as an ambassador for Justice for Black Girls allowed me to practice servant leadership by mentoring younger girls and facilitating discussions on systemic inequities. I spent countless hours connecting with young Black women, listening to their experiences, and providing them with the tools and language to advocate for themselves within their schools and communities. By providing these young women with resources and mentorship, I was "paying it forward" for the guidance I received from my own mentors like Brianna Baker. I believe that true leadership is about creating more leaders, not more followers. Every conversation I had with those girls was an opportunity to plant seeds of self-belief and agency. What I've learned through my organizing work is that servant leadership requires vulnerability, humility, and a genuine commitment to the people you serve. It means being willing to admit when you don't have all the answers and being open to learning from your community. It means celebrating the victories of others as if they were your own, because in a movement rooted in service, collective success is personal success. As I transition into my graduate studies at Temple University through the Teaching Residency program, I will carry this commitment to service with me, ensuring that my leadership is always rooted in the needs and potential of the students and communities I serve. In the classroom, servant leadership will look like creating space for my students to find their own voices and solutions, rather than simply imposing my ideas on them. It will mean being a resource and an advocate, not an authority figure who dictates what they should think or do. My role as an educator will be to build the conditions for their own leadership to emerge. Leadership is not a title; it is an action, and mine will always be one of service, rooted in the belief that the most powerful movements are built by communities, not individuals.

I am working to address one of the most pressing social issues of our time: the systemic marginalization of Black and Brown youth through the school-to-prison pipeline. Growing up in a low-income neighborhood in New York, I witnessed firsthand how inadequate educational support and a lack of advocacy can funnel brilliant students into the criminal justice system. My background in criminal justice studies, paired with my lived experience as the daughter of a teen mother and a first-generation college student, has fueled my commitment to public service and educational equity. I believe that the classroom is the primary site for social change, and I am dedicated to ensuring that every student has an advocate who refuses to let their circumstances dictate their future. My work in addressing this issue began with my involvement in community organizing and nonprofit advocacy. As an ambassador for Justice for Black Girls, I worked to provide young girls with the tools and resources they need to advocate for themselves within their schools and communities. I facilitated adult-led discussions on inequities, mentored younger girls, and used my voice at national conferences to highlight the specific barriers Black girls face in the education system. Additionally, my role as a Campus Coordinator for the Feminist Majority Foundation allowed me to organize voter mobilization efforts and advocate for gender justice, further strengthening my understanding of how grassroots activism can drive systemic change. I am now taking the next step in my public service journey by pursuing a Master’s in Special Education at Temple University through the Teaching Residency program. My goal is to work directly within the School District of Philadelphia, a community similar to the one that raised me, to provide transformative support for students who are often society’s most overlooked. Students in special education are disproportionately affected by the school-to-prison pipeline, frequently labeled as "problems" rather than being provided with the individualized support they need to thrive. By becoming a special education teacher, I am positioning myself on the front lines of this social issue, working to replace cumulative disciplinary measures with restorative conversations and positive reinforcement. To address this issue effectively, I focus on building authentic, integrity-rooted relationships with my students and their families. I intend to create a classroom environment where self-advocacy is a core part of the curriculum, empowering my students to understand their rights and navigate systems that weren't designed for their success. My approach is informed by the generational resilience of my mother and grandmother, who overcame immense personal tragedies and systemic obstacles to ensure I had a seat at the table. I honor their legacy by being the advocate for my students that they were for me. Ultimately, my work in public service is about breaking cycles of poverty and trauma through the power of education. I believe that when we invest in the potential of marginalized youth and provide them with the resources to succeed, we make the entire world a more beautiful and equitable place. Whether through direct classroom instruction, community organizing, or policy advocacy, I am committed to a lifetime of service dedicated to dismantling inequity and uplifting the next generation of leaders. Success for me is not just achieving my own goals, but ensuring that the path is wider and more accessible for every student who comes after me.

My mother has been the single most instrumental force in my educational journey, providing a level of support that defies every statistic and transcends generational trauma. Growing up in a low-income New York neighborhood as the daughter of a teen mother, I was raised in a world that often projected limited expectations onto young people like me. However, my mother refused to let those narratives take root. She embodied a "figureoutable" mindset long before I had a name for it, working multiple jobs and navigating complex systemic barriers with quiet, persistent determination. What makes her strength even more remarkable is that she inherited it from loss and pain. My grandmother lost her own father to homicide at a young age, a tragedy that could have derailed her entirely. Instead, she became a cancer survivor and recovered addict who raised my mother with the same resilience and determination that my mother has now passed down to me. Their strength across generations is the foundation upon which my entire educational journey rests. This support was instrumental to me as a child growing up in a single-parent household because it provided stability and possibility in an environment where both were often scarce. My mother's support wasn't just financial or emotional it was a radical, unwavering belief in my intellectual capacity. She ensured I stayed focused on my studies, even when the pressures of our environment suggested that survival was more important than education. Because of her, I became the first in my family to pursue a college degree, eventually graduating from Lincoln University. Her support served as a buffer against systemic inequities, giving me the confidence to navigate spaces that weren't designed for someone with my background. I honor my mother's legacy and the strength of my grandmother by refusing to accept anything less than excellence in my own life. I strive toward my dreams with the same work ethic they modeled, understanding that my success reflects their investment in me and their determination to break cycles of poverty and trauma. I have applied the resilience they instilled to every facet of my journey, from maintaining strong academics at an HBCU to navigating high-pressure professional environments while remaining a full-time scholar. Every milestone I reach is a way of honoring the women who refused to be limited by their circumstances and ensured I would never accept limits either. As I work to succeed in my long-term goals, I build on their support by paying it forward to the next generation. My decision to pursue a Master's in Special Education at Temple University is a direct extension of the advocacy I experienced at home. Just as my mother and grandmother were my advocates in a world that often overlooked us, I intend to be that champion for students in the School District of Philadelphia. I am driven to be an educator who sees past labels to recognize the brilliant, capable individuals underneath, just as they did for me. By building a career rooted in integrity, accountability, and the resilience modeled across three generations of women, I honor their strength and ensure that families like mine continue to produce leaders who refuse to be limited by their circumstances.

As the first person in my family to pursue a college degree, my education represents far more than just a personal milestone. It is a blueprint for what is possible when resilience meets opportunity. Growing up in a low-income neighborhood in New York, often labeled "the projects," I saw firsthand how a lack of resources, mentorship, and systemic support could limit a young person's vision for their future. I watched brilliant peers get written off simply because their circumstances didn't fit the traditional mold of academic success. As the daughter of a teen mother, I navigated a world that often made assumptions about who I was and what I was capable of achieving. However, my journey from navigating these early challenges to graduating from Lincoln University, a proud HBCU, and now being accepted into Temple University's Special Education Teaching Residency program has proven that while where you start matters, it does not have to dictate where you finish. My path to higher education was not straightforward. There were moments when financial instability made me question whether continuing was even possible. There were times when I felt isolated, unsure if I belonged in academic spaces where first-generation students were rarely centered. But through mentorship with organizations like Justice for Black Girls and the Feminist Majority Foundation, I learned that my story wasn't a deficit it was my greatest strength. Those experiences taught me that representation matters and that young people need to see someone who looks like them, who came from where they came from, thriving in spaces they've been told aren't for them. I plan to inspire and motivate other first generation students by being a visible, vocal example of what happens when you refuse to accept lowered expectations. In my future career as a special education teacher, I will not just teach content; I will actively mentor students who face the same systemic barriers I did. I want to help them navigate the often confusing and exclusionary world of higher education, a system that wasn't necessarily designed with us in mind. By sharing my own challenges with financial instability, academic pressure, and the imposter syndrome that often comes with being "the first," I want to show them that being underprivileged does not mean being incapable. My goal is to create a classroom environment where students learn self-advocacy and understand that their voices belong in every room they walk into especially in academia. I will use my platform to demystify the college process, helping students understand financial aid, scholarship opportunities, and the importance of building community. I want to be the mentor I wish I had, showing them that their lived experiences are sources of strength. By breaking the cycle of limited opportunity in my own life, I am committed to reaching back and pulling others up with me, ensuring that the path to higher education is wider and clearer for the generation coming up behind me.

I chose to pursue Special Education because I saw firsthand how the system fails students who need support the most. Growing up in a low-income neighborhood in New York, often labeled "the projects," I watched classmates who were bright and capable get written off because teachers didn't believe in them or understand their challenges. As the daughter of a teen mother, I had a background that led others to make assumptions about who I am and what I am capable of achieving. My lived experience, however, proved something different: the life-changing impact that mentorship and genuine belief in a young person's potential can have on their trajectory. This understanding became concrete during high school when I became involved with Justice for Black Girls, a nonprofit organization where I worked as an ambassador. Through my work, I facilitated adult discussions on inequities and leadership, mentored younger black girls, and spoke at conferences, including at Columbia University. These experiences shaped my development as a leader and advocate while strengthening my awareness of how school systems directly can influence student outcomes. I began to recognize how structural factors such as the school-to-prison pipeline and other educational systemic issues impact students who need support the most. As the first person in my family to pursue a college degree, my education represents more than a personal milestone. It represents an opportunity to help create pathways for students navigating similar challenges that I have faced. My academic studies in criminal justice have strengthened my understanding of these systemic inequities, while my lived experiences reinforced that central belief that students thrive when educators understand their challenges and are committed to dismantling them even if they are little by little. My decision to pursue Special Education emerged from careful reflection on where I could make the greatest impact. I know students in Special Education often face lowered academic and systemic challenges. I know they deserve educators who refuse to accept lowered expectations, who will put their effort into developing careful individualized approaches to learning, who will actively advocate for their success. The more I learned about the field, the more certain I became that this is where my skills and commitment will be best applied. My goal is to become an educator who empowers students to recognize their capabilities and envision futures beyond their current circumstances. I aim to create a classroom environment where students understand their rights, build self-advocacy skills, and learn to navigate systems that were not always designed with their success in mind. I intend to positively impact society by ensuring every student I teach knows they have an advocate who genuinely believes in them and will fight for their success.