Hi I’m Jaywon Acker and I’ve had to overcome many obstacles in my life being a young black man from Compton , CA in a low income house it was definitely not an easy task or environment to grow up in but through the grace of god and my family I am blessed to be in the position I am right now and wanna continue growing and bettering myself. One of the few obstacles I’ve had to overcome was recently almost 2 years ago I believe when I was getting ready and prepared to leave for college. I was completing my two years of community college and on my way to transferring to a UC and looking forward to continuing my education. That was when in November I was told by my parents that my father had became diagnosed with cancer but it was still early when they caught it luckily. Immediately my head space went to that dark place everyone head goes when they hear someone they love has cancer. It’s something you hear about others having but when it’s someone close to you and in this situation the man that raised me and that I looked up to it added another layer to the situation that I was very unfamiliar with being in. Immediately I wanted to not continue in school and just commit full time to working and supporting my dad in this time , because here is a man who worked 2 jobs and provides a huge family of ours by himself what he does for us can never be duplicated and all I wanted to do was help him in my family in this time while he tries to fight this for us. But if my father haven’t cancer wasn’t enough shortly after that I was told around thanksgiving break our great grandmother on my mothers side had just passed away in her sleep. So I was dealing with a tragedy and the impending future of my dads health status and I didn’t know if I could be able to handle this all by myself at school away from my family while they are going through all of this I helpless at a time where I wanted to feel like I could help the most important people in my life at this junction in our life. I remember probably a few days after my great grandmother had passed just being up in my bed at night thinking in my head and just asking and praying to god to give me the strength and my family to get through this tough time but to also show me a sign or the way to go moving forward because I did not wanna leave for school while my family was going through all of this it felt selfish almost to even think myself when all of this is going on. In that very next day it’s like god has answered my prayers and my parents had come to and talked with me and basically said don’t even think about staying because me continue my education is what was important for them for all their kids to do and it’s what they wanted and what I wanted as well. So getting this scholarship would just continue helping me on my journey and helping my parents proud as well I’ve minted a 3.6-3.7 GPA all throughout my time in college while working full time and even 2 jobs at one point so I hope you see that determination in my me cause I have it god bless you.