Recovery means waking up to a life I once believed I had lost. There was a time when addiction narrowed my world to survival. My future became something I stopped imagining. Recovery gave me more than sobriety. It gave me the ability to choose what came next. I chose to rebuild. I went from experiencing addiction, incarceration, homelessness, and instability to graduating summa cum laude from the University of Washington and beginning law school. But the greatest measure of my recovery is not written on a diploma. It is in the stability I have created for my children, the trust I have rebuilt in myself, and the purpose I have found in helping others navigate barriers I once faced myself. Today, I support people impacted by incarceration, homelessness, and systemic barriers. My past is no longer something that holds me back. It has become part of what equips me to reach back for others. Recovery means knowing that my worst chapters did not get to write my ending. It means showing my children that a life can be rebuilt, one decision at a time. My dreams were never gone. Recovery gave me the courage to wake them up.

Mental health is important to me as a student because I know what it is like to pursue an education while carrying experiences that do not disappear when you walk into a classroom. I have experienced homelessness, addiction, incarceration, domestic violence, and profound loss. For years, I believed strength meant pushing through whatever I was feeling and continuing to perform. Education taught me that succeeding academically is not just about intelligence or determination. Sometimes, success depends on having the support and space to take care of yourself while continuing to move forward. As a nontraditional student and mother, I balance responsibilities outside the classroom that can make prioritizing mental health difficult. I raise two children, work three jobs, and pursue higher education. There are times when everything demands my attention at once. I have had to learn that taking care of my mental health is not separate from achieving my educational goals. It is part of how I sustain them. My experiences have also shaped how I advocate for mental health in my community. Through my work supporting people navigating incarceration, reentry, homelessness, and higher education, I try to look beyond the immediate problem someone brings to me. A missed appointment, unfinished application, or frustrated response does not tell me the whole story. Sometimes what appears to be disengagement is someone overwhelmed by trauma, grief, anxiety, or instability. I advocate by creating space for people to be honest about what they are experiencing without feeling judged. I connect individuals to resources, help them break overwhelming problems into manageable steps, and remind them that asking for support does not make them less capable. My background in social work has reinforced the importance of approaching people as whole human beings rather than defining them by a diagnosis, mistake, or difficult moment. Mental health advocacy also begins in my home. As a mother, I want my children to grow up understanding emotions differently than I once did. I want them to know they can talk about what they are feeling, ask for help, and set boundaries without believing those things are signs of weakness. Breaking cycles is not only about changing financial circumstances or educational opportunities. It is also about creating emotional safety for the next generation. As I begin law school, I want to carry this perspective into the legal profession. Too often, mental health, trauma, homelessness, and system involvement intersect, yet people are judged by their behavior without anyone asking what happened before that moment. I want to become an attorney who sees the person behind the case and advocates for responses rooted in dignity and understanding. Mental health matters to me because I have learned that surviving and healing are not the same thing. My education has given me opportunities I once could not imagine, but caring for my mental health has helped me become capable of sustaining those opportunities. My advocacy is rooted in a simple belief: people should not have to reach their breaking point before they are worthy of support.

For years, I thought surviving meant pushing everything down and continuing forward. I had experienced homelessness, addiction, incarceration, domestic violence, and profound loss, but I rarely gave myself permission to understand what those experiences had done to my mental health. When survival is your priority, there is little room to process trauma. You learn how to make it through the next day or the next crisis. Eventually, survival became so familiar that I did not realize how much I was carrying. For a long time, I measured strength by how much I could endure without falling apart. I became good at functioning through pain and convincing myself that if I kept moving forward, everything behind me could no longer affect me. Eventually, I learned that rebuilding my life required more than changing my circumstances. I had to address what was happening internally too. Prioritizing my mental health forced me to redefine strength. Strength became acknowledging that what happened to me mattered, accepting support, setting boundaries, and allowing myself to heal. I learned that moving forward and healing are not always the same thing. That lesson became even more important when I became a mother. I did not want my children to inherit the belief that being strong means silently carrying everything alone. I wanted them to grow up in a home where emotions could be expressed, support could be requested, and difficult experiences could be discussed rather than buried. Taking care of my mental health became part of breaking cycles and creating a different foundation for my children. Education also became part of rebuilding myself. I returned to school after dropping out of high school, earning my GED, and spending years believing my past had determined my future. School gave me something trauma had taken from me: the ability to imagine a future beyond surviving. I eventually graduated summa cum laude from the University of Washington and am now beginning law school. Success, however, does not erase mental health struggles. Today, I raise two children, work three jobs, and pursue higher education. People may see the degrees, awards, career, and accomplishments without seeing what it takes to remain grounded while carrying everything that came before them. I have learned that I can be successful and still need support. I can be resilient and still become overwhelmed. My experiences have also changed how I see others. In my work with people navigating incarceration, homelessness, reentry, and education, I know that what looks like irresponsibility may actually be trauma. Anger may be covering fear. Disengagement may come from someone who has spent years believing systems will eventually fail them. I understand because there were times when people could have seen only my mistakes instead of the pain underneath them. As I begin law school, I want to carry that understanding into legal advocacy. I want to become an attorney who sees the whole person behind a case number, criminal record, housing crisis, or legal problem. I cannot rewrite the chapters of my life that caused me pain, but I can decide what those experiences become. I have chosen to turn them into compassion, advocacy, and a commitment to creating something different for my children. My mental health journey did not simply teach me how to survive my own life. It taught me how I want to spend it: helping create a world where people are given the support, dignity, and opportunity to believe their hardest chapter does not have to become their ending.

The Taylor Swift performance I find most moving is her performance of “Long Live” during the Eras Tour. There is something powerful about watching her perform a song she wrote early in her career after experiencing everything that came in the years between. The song feels different when performed by someone who has had the opportunity to look back and realize that the dreams she once imagined became her life. That feeling resonates deeply with me. There were years when I could not imagine the life I have today. I dropped out of high school, earned my GED, experienced homelessness, addiction, incarceration, and loss. For a long time, success meant surviving whatever was directly in front of me. College, a career, and especially law school did not feel like possibilities meant for someone with my story. Years later, I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Washington and am now beginning law school. I have built a career helping people navigate incarceration, reentry, homelessness, and higher education. Sometimes I have to remind myself that I am living a life that a previous version of me could not have imagined. That is what makes “Long Live” so moving to me. It captures the importance of stopping long enough to recognize how far you have come and remembering the people who stood beside you along the way. My accomplishments have never been mine alone. My children have grown alongside my educational journey. My family, mentors, and people with lived experience who believed in me helped me see possibilities for myself before I could see them on my own. Every graduation, award, acceptance letter, and opportunity represents not only an accomplishment, but every person who helped me reach it. My journey is also far from finished. Beginning law school means stepping into another chapter that will challenge me in entirely new ways. I am raising two children, working three jobs, and continuing to pursue an education because I want to build a career that creates opportunities for people who have been told their past limits their future. For me, “Long Live” is not simply about celebrating success. It is about remembering what it took to get there, who stood beside you, and what you choose to do with the opportunity once you arrive. When I look at my children and think about everything it took to reach this point, I understand that feeling differently. I am still becoming the person I once could not imagine being. But every once in a while, I get to look back at where I started and realize: I made it here.

As a nontraditional student, single mother of two, and incoming law student, I have learned that pursuing higher education is not only about being academically prepared. It is also about figuring out how to afford the opportunity without allowing the cost to undermine the future I am working so hard to build. I am approaching my current and future student debt from every direction I can. I work full time as a reentry education navigator, part time as an overnight case manager at a youth transitional housing program, and as an independent contractor providing virtual success coaching. I use my income, savings, scholarships, and federal student loans to cover tuition, educational costs, and the everyday expenses of raising a family. I continuously apply for scholarships because every dollar I receive is one less dollar I have to borrow and repay with interest. I am particularly intentional about debt as I begin law school. I do not automatically accept the maximum amount of loans available to me. I carefully consider what I actually need, continue working, use savings when possible, and seek outside funding to reduce how much I borrow. Working three jobs while attending school is not easy, but I am willing to make sacrifices now to protect my family's financial stability later. My relationship with money and debt is also shaped by where I have been. I have experienced homelessness and spent years rebuilding my life after addiction and justice system involvement. I know what it feels like to live without financial security, and I do not take the stability I have created for granted. I am now raising two children who depend on me, which means every financial decision I make affects more than just me. At the same time, I refuse to let fear of debt prevent me from pursuing an education that can expand the impact I am able to make. I have already built a career supporting people navigating incarceration, reentry, homelessness, and access to higher education. My goal is to become a public interest attorney and use my legal education to challenge the systemic barriers I currently help people navigate. That goal makes reducing my student debt especially important. I am not pursuing law because I want the highest paying career available to me. I am pursuing it because I want to serve communities that are often unable to afford legal representation and advocate for people whose voices are too easily overlooked. The less debt I carry when I graduate, the more freedom I will have to choose work based on impact rather than salary. Receiving this scholarship would not simply help me pay a tuition bill. It would reduce what I need to borrow, protect the financial stability I have fought to create for my children, and give me greater freedom to pursue the public interest career that brought me to law school in the first place. I have worked too hard to rebuild my life to allow student debt to dictate what comes next. My goal is to leave law school not only with a degree, but with the financial freedom to use it where I believe it can make the greatest difference.

The Olivia Rodrigo lyric that resonates most with my journey comes from "brutal"; "Nothing’s forever, nothing is as good as it seems." Throughout the song, she also captures the feeling of being overwhelmed by expectations, questioning where you belong, and realizing that growing into yourself can be harder than you imagined. I connect deeply with that tension. My life has rarely followed the path I thought it would. I dropped out of high school and earned my GED. I experienced homelessness, addiction, incarceration, loss, and years when survival mattered more than planning for a future. There were times when I looked at other people's lives and wondered how they seemed to move forward so easily while I was fighting to stay afloat. I often felt behind, as though everyone else had received instructions for life that I somehow missed. The frustration throughout "brutal" resonates with that part of me. There is honesty in admitting life can be exhausting and unfair, and that becoming the person you want to be does not happen neatly. My story is not one where everything suddenly became easy once I decided to change my life. But the lyric "Nothing’s forever" has taken on a different meaning for me. The darkest parts of my life were not forever either. I found my way back to education and began rebuilding. Education became proof that my circumstances were temporary, even when it did not feel that way. I once dropped out believing I did not belong in a classroom. Years later, I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Washington and am now beginning law school. Those accomplishments mean more to me because I know the version of myself who was homeless, struggling with addiction, and simply trying to survive would never have imagined them. I also built a career supporting people navigating incarceration, reentry, homelessness, and higher education. I now turn experiences I once carried with shame into experiences that give my work purpose. The parts of my story I once wanted to hide have become some of the reasons I am able to connect with and advocate for others. Even my successes come with challenges. I am raising two children, working three jobs, and pursuing my education while trying to create the stability for my family that I once struggled to find for myself. There are still days when life feels overwhelming and I question whether I can carry everything. That is why "brutal" resonates with me. It does not pretend that growing, surviving, or figuring out who you are is beautiful every moment. Sometimes it is exhausting. Sometimes it is unfair. Sometimes you accomplish something you once dreamed about and barely have time to celebrate before another responsibility is waiting. I can be proud of how far I have come while still acknowledging how hard it is to raise two children, work three jobs, and pursue law school at the same time. My greatest triumph is not that my life became perfect. It is that I kept going long enough to watch it become different. I am building a career from experiences I once wished I could erase, and my children are growing up watching their mother pursue a future that once seemed impossible. They will know a version of me that I had to fight to become. I once believed my circumstances determined my future. Now I know circumstances can change, people can change, and entire lives can change. "Nothing’s forever" is not a pessimistic lyric to me. It is a reminder that the hardest chapter does not have to become the ending.

My grandparents have been the constant in my life. They helped raise me when my mother was still trying to build stability for herself and for me, and decades later, they are still helping me build a better future for my own children. My mom was young when she had me. While she attended technical school and worked multiple jobs, my grandparents stepped in and took on much of the responsibility of raising me. They gave us a place to live and provided me with a loving, stable home. They were the people I could always depend on, and even today, in their mid eighties, they remain some of the strongest people in my corner. As a teenager, I lost my way. I fell into the wrong crowd, dropped out of high school, and eventually earned my GED. What followed were some of the hardest years of my life. I experienced homelessness and struggled with addiction for nearly a decade. I carried so much shame about the direction my life had taken that I distanced myself from my family because I did not want them to see how far I had fallen. But my grandparents never stopped loving me. Even when I stayed away, they kept me in their prayers and were there when I needed them. Their love taught me what it means to continue believing in someone even when they are struggling to believe in themselves. After the birth of my son, I decided to change the direction of my life. I got sober and returned to school, determined to create the stability for my children that my grandparents had created for me. Once again, they stood beside me. Today, as I raise my children, work three jobs, and attend school full time, they continue to help make my education possible. My grandmother, especially, has shaped the mother I have become. Her love, sacrifice, and consistency taught me that parenting is not just about providing for a child. It is about creating a foundation they can return to even when life becomes difficult. I now try to give my children that same foundation. Being raised by my grandparents has also shaped my future goals. They showed me how profoundly someone's life can change when they have a person in their corner who refuses to give up on them. That lesson guides the work I do today supporting people navigating barriers related to incarceration, homelessness, education, and reentry. As I begin law school, my goal is to become an attorney who advocates for people and families who are too often overlooked by our systems. I want to work at the intersection of criminal justice, education, reentry, and public interest law, using my lived experience and education to challenge systemic barriers and create pathways to opportunity for others. My grandparents gave my mother the support she needed to pursue a better future. They gave me stability as a child, loved me through the years when I lost my way, and stood beside me when I decided to rebuild my life. Now, they are helping me give my children opportunities that once felt impossible for me. They are in their mid eighties and still showing up for me. I cannot think of a better way to honor everything they have poured into my life than to turn that love into something larger than myself. They gave me a foundation when my life was uncertain. My goal is to use that foundation to build pathways for others.

For years, some of my hardest battles were the ones no one could see. I could read the same page three times and still have to start over. I could appear capable while ADHD made focusing exhausting, anxiety kept my mind racing, depression made the future difficult to see, and PTSD kept the past close behind me. Eventually, substance use became my attempt to quiet all of it. For a long time, I did not understand how deeply mental health was shaping my life. Trauma affected the way I saw safety, relationships, and myself. Anxiety left me constantly on edge and consumed by worry. Depression made it difficult to imagine a future beyond whatever I was trying to survive at the time. PTSD taught me that surviving something does not mean it stops affecting you when the immediate danger is over. I carried experiences with me long after they happened. Eventually, substances became a way of coping with pain I did not know how to process. What began as an attempt to escape created an entirely different set of consequences. Trauma, mental health, substance use, instability, and involvement with the criminal legal system became intertwined. For a period of my life, so much of my energy went toward surviving that I had little left to imagine who I could become. Recovery required more than stopping my substance use. I had to confront the reasons I wanted to escape in the first place. I had to address my mental health, process trauma, learn healthier ways to cope, and begin understanding myself in ways I never had before. That process changed one of my most important beliefs: struggling with mental health is not a reflection of someone's character, intelligence, strength, or potential. That understanding has profoundly affected my relationships. I have learned that people can carry tremendous pain while appearing completely fine to everyone around them. Because of that, I try to approach people with curiosity and compassion rather than assumptions. I understand how powerful it can be to have someone listen without immediately judging, labeling, or trying to define you by the hardest period of your life. That perspective is especially important to me as a mother. I want my children to grow up knowing that mental health is something we can talk about openly. I want them to know that asking for help is normal, that emotions do not need to be hidden, and that struggling does not mean they have failed. I cannot protect them from every difficult experience, but I can help create a home where they never feel they have to suffer silently. My mental health has also shaped the way I understand education and achievement. ADHD can make reading and focusing require significantly more effort, but I have learned how to work with my brain rather than constantly fighting against it. I learned to advocate for accommodations, develop strategies that work for me, and recognize that receiving support does not diminish an accomplishment. Those lessons helped carry me to graduation from the University of Washington with a 3.99 GPA. Now, I am preparing to begin law school. I am proud of those accomplishments, but not because they prove I somehow defeated mental illness. I have not. I still intentionally manage ADHD, anxiety, depression, and the effects of trauma. Success did not make those challenges disappear. It taught me that I can continue building a meaningful life while managing them. My experiences have also shaped my aspirations. Today, I work with people navigating education, reentry, housing instability, and other systemic barriers. I understand how mental health, trauma, substance use, poverty, and involvement with the criminal legal system can intersect because I have experienced some of those intersections myself. When I meet someone during a difficult chapter of their life, I do not see only the circumstances in front of me. I wonder who that person could become if they had the right support and someone who believed their current circumstances did not define their future. That belief is also part of why I am pursuing law. I want to combine my lived experience, social work background, and legal education to advocate for people whose lives are too often reduced to diagnoses, records, addictions, or mistakes. Systems have a way of turning complicated human beings into labels. My experiences have taught me to look beyond those labels. Mental health has ultimately changed the way I understand the world. I no longer believe strength means carrying everything quietly. Sometimes strength is saying that you are struggling. Sometimes it is accepting help. Sometimes it is going to treatment, entering recovery, requesting an accommodation, setting a boundary, or simply admitting that you cannot do everything alone. There was a time when I tried to silence what I was experiencing. Today, I use those experiences to advocate, connect, and create change. I cannot rewrite the chapters of my life shaped by trauma, depression, anxiety, ADHD, or substance use, and I would never pretend those experiences were easy. But I can decide what I build from them. I am building a life where my children know that mental health can be spoken about openly, a career where people are seen beyond their hardest moments, and a future where my lived experience strengthens rather than limits my ability to create change. For me, bringing mental health out of the darkness begins there: telling the truth about what we carry and showing others that they do not have to carry it silently.

They forgot to build a door. That was the first thing I noticed. Technically, there were plenty of doors at the community college where I was hired. Admissions. Financial aid. Advising. Workforce programs. Basic needs. Counseling. Classrooms filled with possibilities. But for someone coming home from incarceration or navigating the consequences of the criminal legal system, those doors did not always connect. A student could walk through admissions and still have no idea how to explain years missing from their educational history. They could qualify for financial aid but struggle to complete the forms. They could be ready for a career but worry that their record would disqualify them before they ever got started. Housing instability, supervision requirements, transportation, technology, court debt, employment, and the simple question, "Do I even belong here?" could stand between someone and a classroom. Most people looked at those as separate problems. I saw a design flaw. This is what a potential Mad Genius looks like. Not someone standing over a laboratory while lightning strikes in the background. Not someone with wild hair who invents something the world has never seen. To me, a Mad Genius is someone who sees barriers that have become so normal that everyone else has stopped questioning them and refuses to accept that they have to remain. Sometimes the most creative ideas do not begin in laboratories. They begin with lived experience and a dangerous question: *Why does it have to work this way?* I came to that question through experience. I know what it means to carry the label of being justice impacted into spaces that were not designed with people like me in mind. I also know what education can become when someone stops seeing your past as evidence of your limitations and starts seeing your potential. Education changed the trajectory of my life. Eventually, I went from navigating these systems myself to helping other people navigate them. When I became the first person hired into the reentry education navigator position at my local community college, I had an opportunity to do more than hand students another resource sheet. I could start building the door I once needed. My laboratory became a community college campus. My materials were FAFSA applications, enrollment processes, community partnerships, emergency resources, reentry organizations, faculty connections, workforce programs, and a ridiculous number of emails. My experiments started with questions. What happens when a student does not have identification? What happens when someone wants to begin planning for college before they are released? What happens when a criminal record intersects with the career they want? What happens when a student gets accepted into college but is about to lose their housing? What happens when someone has spent years being told what they cannot do and suddenly has to imagine what they "can" do? Then came the most important question: What would happen if one person helped connect all of it? That question became the foundation for something bigger. Because I was the first person in this position at my college, there was no established blueprint waiting for me. I had the opportunity to help build what reentry education support could look like from the ground up. My Mad Genius idea was not to invent an entirely new resource. It was to take resources that institutions often keep separate and connect them: education, reentry, housing, financial aid, workforce development, community support, and lived experience. The goal was not to create another program that told people what they needed or sent them to a different person for every barrier they encountered. I wanted to build something that supported justice impacted students as whole people, shaped by the experiences of those who had actually navigated these barriers. That meant thinking differently about what student success looks like. Sometimes success is registering for classes. Sometimes it is getting a past due balance addressed so a student can remain housed. Sometimes it is finding a career pathway that remains possible with a criminal record. Sometimes it is helping someone navigate financial aid, technology, transportation, identification, or community resources. And sometimes it is simply being the person who says, “Yes, there is still a path forward. Now let’s figure out how to build it.” That is where my version of genius gets a little mad. Because I do not think people should have to become exceptional navigators of complicated systems just to access an education. I want to redesign the system instead. My vision is bigger than helping one student successfully enroll. I want colleges to understand reentry support as part of educational access. I want pathways connecting correctional education, community organizations, colleges, universities, workforce programs, and legal resources. I want students returning from incarceration to encounter people who understand the barriers before those barriers become reasons to leave school. Most importantly, I want people with lived experience helping design those systems. Traditional systems often begin with policies. I begin with people. That difference matters. Someone can study reentry and understand that housing is a barrier. Someone who has experienced instability understands what it means to complete an assignment while worrying about where they will sleep. Someone can read that criminal records affect employment. Someone who has carried one understands the hesitation before submitting an application and wondering whether a past mistake will outweigh everything they have accomplished since. Data can tell us where students disappear. Lived experience can help us understand why. That is why my own experiences are not separate from my creativity. They are the source of it. My journey has taken me from being impacted by the criminal legal system to graduating from the University of Washington with a 3.99 GPA and preparing to enter law school. I know what it is like to navigate barriers that were never designed with my success in mind. Now I get to stand on the other side of some of those barriers and ask how we can make them easier for the next person to cross. For me, being a Mad Genius means taking what you have survived, combining it with what you have learned, and using both to build something that did not exist when you needed it. That is the work I want to spend my life doing. I do not want to be the exception who made it through. I want to build something that makes success less exceptional. Maybe that is my Mad Genius idea. Take the things systems usually keep separate and mash them together: education and reentry. Lived experience and institutional power. Social services and law. Individual advocacy and systemic change. Then see what happens. I already know what I hope happens. A student walks onto a college campus carrying a history that once made them question whether higher education had a place for them. This time, there is a door. And they do not have to find it alone.

For years, some of my hardest battles were the ones no one could see. I could read the same page three times and still have to start over. I could appear capable while ADHD made focusing exhausting, anxiety kept my mind racing, depression made the future difficult to see, and PTSD kept the past close behind me. Eventually, substance use became my attempt to quiet all of it. Mental illness affected far more than my education. Depression made it difficult to imagine a future beyond whatever I was trying to survive at the time. Anxiety left me constantly on edge and consumed by worry. PTSD meant that traumatic experiences did not end when the immediate danger was over. I carried them mentally and emotionally long after. Eventually, substances became a way of coping with pain and trauma I did not know how to process. Instead of healing, I found myself caught in a cycle of trauma, substance use, instability, and involvement with the criminal legal system. Recovery required me to do more than stop using substances. I had to confront the trauma, depression, anxiety, and patterns I had spent years trying to escape. I also had to learn how my brain worked rather than constantly fighting against it. Understanding my ADHD helped me develop strategies, advocate for accommodations, and recognize that needing support did not take away from what I was capable of accomplishing. Addressing my mental health and entering recovery changed the direction of my life. Education became an important part of how I rebuilt. As I learned healthier ways to manage my mental health and trauma, I was able to put the same determination I had once used simply to survive toward creating a future for myself and my children. That determination eventually led me to graduate from the University of Washington with a 3.99 GPA. Now, I am preparing to begin law school. Those accomplishments are especially meaningful to me because success has not meant that my mental health challenges disappeared. I still have to intentionally manage ADHD, anxiety, depression, and the effects of trauma while balancing motherhood, work, and school. The difference is that I now understand what I need, know how to advocate for myself, and no longer view asking for support as something that diminishes my strength or ability. My experiences have also shaped the work I have chosen to do. Today, I support people navigating education, reentry, housing instability, and other systemic barriers. I understand how mental health, trauma, substance use, and involvement with the criminal legal system can become intertwined because I have experienced that intersection myself. I also understand how powerful it can be when someone is met with support instead of judgment and when people recognize their potential beyond the hardest chapters of their lives. There was a time when much of my energy went toward simply surviving my circumstances. Today, that same determination carries me into law school and into work where I help others navigate barriers I once faced myself. Mental illness has affected nearly every chapter of my life, but it has also shaped my compassion, resilience, and purpose. It has taught me that a diagnosis, an addiction, a traumatic experience, or a difficult chapter does not determine someone's potential. Mental illness is part of my story, but it does not get to write the ending. I do.

I want to build pathways where systems have built barriers. I have spent my life fighting my way through doors that were never designed to open for people with stories like mine. My goal is not simply to make it through those doors, but to make sure they stay open for everyone coming behind me. For much of my life, the path from where I was to where I wanted to be was difficult to see. I dropped out of high school, earned my GED, experienced incarceration, and spent years believing that certain spaces were simply not meant for people with backgrounds like mine. Higher education changed that. I went from community college to graduating summa cum laude from the University of Washington, and now I am pursuing law school. But getting here taught me something important: opportunity means very little if people cannot access it. I want to build pathways that make education, legal advocacy, and meaningful careers more accessible to people impacted by the justice system. Too often, people leave incarceration or encounter the criminal legal system and are told to rebuild their lives while facing barriers to housing, employment, education, and professional opportunities. We tell people to move forward while continuing to place obstacles in front of them. I have already started building something different. Through my work supporting justice-impacted students, I help people navigate higher education, reentry, financial resources, housing challenges, and career pathways. As a student at the University of Washington Tacoma, I founded the Formerly Incarcerated Student Association because I wanted students with lived experience to have a place where they did not have to hide their past to feel like they belonged. These experiences have shown me that changing someone's future does not always begin with changing an entire system. Sometimes it begins with one person having access to the right information, connection, or advocate at the right moment. My law degree will allow me to build on that work in a much larger way. My long term vision is to create an organization that combines legal advocacy, education, and reentry support for justice-impacted individuals and families. I want someone facing a legal barrier to find more than an attorney. I want them to find a pathway forward. I am also building something within my own family. As a single mother of two, every educational milestone changes what my children see as possible. They are watching their mother go from earning a GED to pursuing a law degree. I want them to inherit more than financial stability. I want them to inherit possibility. Ultimately, I do not want my education to end with letters behind my name. I want to use it to build doors where barriers once existed, pathways where people once felt stuck, and opportunities that continue long after I am gone. I know what it feels like to need someone to show you a way forward. I am building a future where I can be that person for others.

Being a single mother and a student means constantly deciding which responsibility needs me most in that moment. There is rarely a time when I get to be only a student, only an employee, or only a mom. I am raising two children, working multiple jobs, and continuing my education while trying to create a future where my children have the stability and opportunities I once struggled to imagine for myself. The most challenging part is not simply finding enough hours in the day. It is carrying the responsibility of knowing that there is no one else to pick up what I cannot finish. My school deadlines still exist when one of my children needs me. My children still need dinner, rides, attention, and a present mother when I have assignments due. Work does not stop because I have an exam. I fit studying around swim lessons, taekwondo practices, school activities, appointments, bedtime routines, and work schedules. Some nights, my real study time does not begin until my children are asleep and I am already exhausted. There is also an emotional challenge that is harder to measure. I sometimes question whether pursuing such an ambitious education is taking too much time away from my children. Then I remind myself why I am doing it. I am not choosing education instead of my children. I am choosing education because of them and because of the future I want us to have. My journey to this point has been anything but traditional. I dropped out of high school during my senior year and later earned my GED. I experienced homelessness, addiction, domestic violence, incarceration, and periods when simply surviving took priority over planning for a future. For a long time, higher education did not feel like a place meant for someone with my background. Eventually, education became one of the ways I began rebuilding my life. I went from earning my GED to attending community college and eventually transferring to the University of Washington Tacoma. In June 2026, I graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in Social Welfare and a minor in Criminal Justice. I accomplished that while working and raising my children. Now, I am taking the next step by pursuing law school. My children have witnessed nearly every part of this journey. They have seen textbooks on the kitchen table, watched me work on assignments after long days, attended events celebrating my accomplishments, and learned that sometimes Mom has homework too. I hope those memories shape how they understand education. I do not want college to feel foreign or unreachable to them. I want them to grow up believing they belong in any classroom or profession they are willing to work toward. My ambitions also extend beyond creating financial stability for my own family. I currently work with justice impacted individuals who are navigating higher education and reentry. I know how overwhelming systems can feel when you do not have a roadmap or someone to guide you through them. My long term goal is to become an attorney and use my education to advocate for justice impacted individuals and families, expand access to education and legal resources, and challenge systems that prevent people from moving forward long after they have already paid for their mistakes. Receiving this $2,000 scholarship would relieve a very real part of the financial pressure that comes with pursuing law school as a single parent. Every dollar I receive in scholarship support is money I do not have to borrow or earn by taking additional hours away from my children and my studies. It would help with educational expenses while giving me something equally valuable: time. For a single parent, financial assistance does not only pay a bill. It can mean fewer work hours, another evening available to study, or more time to be present with your children. I am proud of what I have accomplished, but I am even more aware of what it has required. My children have watched me struggle, but they have also watched me refuse to give up. I want them to remember that part most. My goal is not simply to earn a law degree or create a successful career. I am working to change the trajectory of my family. I want my children to inherit more than financial stability. I want them to inherit the belief that their circumstances never have to determine the limits of their future. Being a single mother makes this journey harder, but it also gives me my greatest reason to keep going. Every late night, every difficult semester, and every sacrifice moves us closer to the life I am building. This scholarship would not just invest in my education. It would invest in a mother determined to create a different future for her children and use that future to create opportunities for others.

For much of my life, community was something I needed but did not always know how to find. When I entered higher education as a formerly incarcerated, first generation student, I carried experiences that made me question whether I truly belonged there. Finding people who understood those experiences changed the trajectory of my life. It also taught me that community is not something we should simply hope to find. Sometimes, we have to build it for others. At the University of Washington Tacoma, I founded the Formerly Incarcerated Student Association to create a space for students who often felt invisible on a college campus. I wanted justice impacted students to have a community where they could walk into a room without hiding or explaining their past. We created opportunities for students to connect, support one another, share resources, and recognize that incarceration did not disqualify them from belonging in higher education. What began as an effort to create connection became part of a larger commitment to making educational spaces more welcoming for people who have historically been excluded from them. That commitment now extends into my professional and community work. As a Community Based Corrections Education Navigator, I support justice impacted individuals as they pursue college and career pathways. The students I work with are rarely navigating education alone. They may also be dealing with housing instability, employment barriers, financial hardship, reentry, or the consequences of a criminal record. My role may begin with education, but compassionate service means recognizing the whole person standing in front of me. One student I supported was close to completing her nursing prerequisites when an assault charge disrupted the future she had been building. Rather than allowing one event to end her educational journey, we explored other possibilities together. She is now nearing completion of a degree in behavioral human services. When she later faced housing instability, I helped her navigate emergency assistance and additional resources so she could remain housed and continue moving toward graduation. I also give back by sharing my experiences publicly, mentoring and supporting other justice impacted students, participating in community conversations, and connecting people with resources and opportunities. I believe lived experience becomes especially powerful when we use what we have learned to make someone else's journey less difficult. Community changed my life because eventually, I found people who saw possibility in me when I was still learning to see it in myself. Their support helped me go from earning a GED to graduating from the University of Washington and pursuing law school. Now, I want to be that person for someone else. My contribution to my community is not defined by one volunteer experience, organization, or job title. It is a commitment to making sure that as I move forward, I create room for others to move forward too. The strongest communities are built when people refuse to leave others behind, and that is the kind of community I intend to spend my life building.

To me, selflessness is not about putting yourself last or ignoring your own needs. It is recognizing when you have knowledge, access, or an opportunity that could make someone else’s path easier and choosing to use it. Sometimes the most meaningful thing you can give another person is your time, your voice, and your willingness to stay beside them when walking away would be easier. Service has become a central part of my life. I am a single mother raising two children, work multiple jobs, and am beginning law school, so time is one of the things I have the least of. Yet I continue making space to support others because I know what it feels like to face overwhelming circumstances and need someone who sees more in you than your current situation. One student I have supported was close to completing her prerequisites for nursing when an assault charge suddenly changed the direction of her life. She went from preparing for her future to questioning whether the career she had worked toward was even possible anymore. I could have simply provided information about alternative programs, but I knew she needed more than a referral. We explored new educational pathways together, and she is now close to completing a degree in behavioral human services. My support did not stop once she found a new academic path. When she experienced housing instability and faced the possibility of losing her home, I helped her navigate emergency funding and additional financial resources. When she worried about finding employment with a record, we explored options and resources together. I continued showing up because success means very little if we only help someone through the easiest part of their journey. I have also worked to create support beyond individual interactions. As a student, I founded an organization for formerly incarcerated students because I knew how isolating higher education could feel for people carrying experiences rarely represented on campus. I wanted students to have a space where they did not have to explain or hide their past to belong. I have shared my story on panels, advocated for justice impacted students, connected people with resources, and used opportunities I have been given to bring attention to people whose voices are too often left out of important conversations. What drives me is remembering the people who did this for me. When I reached the University of Washington, I finally found people with lived experience who saw my potential before I fully saw it myself. They did not define me by where I had been. They helped me imagine where I could go. Their support helped me believe that someone with my background could graduate from college, build a career serving others, and pursue becoming an attorney. That changed how I view success. I do not want to simply walk through doors that once seemed impossible for me to enter. I want to hold those doors open. Selflessness, to me, is turning the opportunities I have received into opportunities for someone else. It is answering the call, making the connection, advocating when someone feels unheard, and reminding people that their hardest chapter does not have to become their entire story. I cannot remove every barrier another person faces, but I can use my education, experiences, and position to make sure they do not face those barriers alone. My success will never feel complete if it ends with me. I want every degree I earn, every connection I make, and every opportunity I receive to increase my ability to reach back and help someone else move forward.

Being a first generation student means learning how to navigate spaces no one in my family could teach me how to enter. It means figuring out financial aid, college applications, academic expectations, and now law school while carrying the hope that what I learn will make the path easier for my children and for others coming behind me. My journey to higher education was not traditional. I dropped out of high school during my senior year and eventually earned my GED. For years, college did not feel like a place meant for someone with my background. I experienced addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, incarceration, and circumstances that could have easily convinced me that my future had already been decided. Eventually, education became the way I began rewriting that story. I started small, but every accomplishment changed what I believed was possible. I went from earning my GED to community college and eventually transferred to the University of Washington. In June 2026, I graduated summa cum laude with a degree in Social Welfare and a minor in Criminal Justice. Now, I am beginning law school as a first generation law student. I accomplished this while raising two children as a single mother and working multiple jobs. My children have watched me study after long shifts, complete assignments around their activities, and keep going when I was exhausted. They are one of my greatest motivations because I know I am not simply earning degrees. I am changing what higher education looks like within our family. I want college to feel like an expectation they are capable of achieving, not an unfamiliar world they have to figure out alone. My experiences have also given my education a purpose beyond myself. Today, I work with justice-impacted students navigating higher education and reentry. I have sat beside people who questioned whether their past disqualified them from the future they wanted, and I have been able to tell them, from experience, that it does not. My dream is to become an attorney and use both my lived experience and legal education to advocate for justice impacted individuals and families, challenge systemic barriers, and expand access to education and legal resources. This scholarship would help make that dream more sustainable. Law school brings significant financial responsibility, particularly while supporting two children and continuing to work. Scholarship support would reduce the amount I need to rely on student loans and allow me to devote more of my time and energy to my education, my children, and the community work that gives my education meaning. Being first generation means I did not inherit a roadmap. I had to create one. My goal now is to make sure the people coming behind me do not have to navigate their journeys without one.

Being a single mother has meant that my educational journey has never belonged only to me. Every class I attend, assignment I complete, and degree I pursue happens alongside raising two children, working multiple jobs, and building the stability and future I want my family to have. There have been nights when I have gone from work to homework after my children were asleep and mornings when I was already exhausted before the day began. School deadlines have to fit around work schedules, swim lessons, taekwondo practices, appointments, school activities, and everything else that comes with raising children without another parent sharing those daily responsibilities. There is rarely a moment when I am only a student. Being a single mother has taught me that perseverance is not always one defining moment of overcoming adversity. Sometimes it is continuing to show up when there is no extra time, energy, or room for things to go wrong. Still, I have refused to believe that motherhood means I have to choose between being present for my children and pursuing ambitious goals for myself. I want my children to watch me build a life rather than simply survive one. They have watched me study, graduate from college, build a career centered on helping others, and now pursue a legal education. More importantly, I want them to grow up knowing that difficult circumstances can shape their story without determining their future. That belief also drives how I give back to my community. I work alongside justice-impacted students navigating higher education, reentry, employment, housing, and systems that often create additional barriers to moving forward. I understand the difference it makes when someone does more than provide a resource and instead sees your potential, advocates beside you, and reminds you that you belong in spaces you may never have imagined yourself entering. As I pursue my legal education, I plan to expand this work through legal advocacy, policy change, and direct support for justice impacted individuals and families. My long term goal is to help create pathways that make education, legal resources, and meaningful opportunities more accessible to communities that have historically been excluded from them. Being a single mother has made my educational journey more challenging, but it has also made my purpose clearer. I am changing the trajectory of my family while preparing myself to help other families change theirs. I want my children to see that success is not only about how far you go, but how many people you help move forward with you.

One of the greatest hardships I face as a single mother pursuing higher education is knowing that there is no part of my life that stops so I can be a student. I am raising two children, working three jobs, managing a household, and continuing my education. There is no second parent to take over when I have a deadline, need to study, have to work, or one of my children needs me. There is no one else responsible for keeping our household financially stable. If I fall behind, there is no safety net waiting to catch us. My days are often scheduled from the moment I wake up until long after my children go to sleep. I move between work responsibilities, schoolwork, parenting, appointments, practices, and everything required to keep a household running. Some days, the only time that belongs to school is late at night when the house is finally quiet. Then I wake up and do it again. One thing I have been intentional about is making sure that pursuing my future does not come at the expense of my children. My calendar does not only include work shifts, assignments, and deadlines. It includes parent and child swim lessons, volleyball practices, school activities, appointments, family time, and the everyday moments my children deserve to have their mother present for. I want to build a better future for them, but I also understand that they are growing up while I am building it. I cannot get these years back. That creates a constant emotional struggle. When I am studying, I sometimes feel guilty that I am not spending that time with my children. When I am with them, part of my mind is calculating how many hours I have left to finish an assignment or prepare for the next day. When I am working, I am thinking about both. There is rarely a moment when I am only carrying one responsibility. Financially, pursuing higher education as a single mother creates another layer of pressure. I cannot simply reduce my responsibilities to make school easier. Rent, groceries, childcare, transportation, children's activities, tuition, books, and everyday expenses do not pause during finals week. Working three jobs is not about wanting to stay busy. It is what allows me to continue pursuing my goals while providing stability and opportunities for my children. There are sacrifices people do not always see. Sleep is often the first thing I give up. Personal time is almost nonexistent. There are nights when I am exhausted but still have pages to read, assignments to complete, lunches to prepare, clothes to wash, and another day to get ready for. I have learned how to keep moving even when I am tired because two children are watching what I do with the life I have been given. That is also what makes this journey so meaningful. My children are not an obstacle standing between me and my education. They are two of the greatest reasons I refuse to give up. I want them to see that their circumstances do not determine how far they can go. I want them to know that it is possible to struggle and still succeed, to carry enormous responsibilities and still dream bigger, and to build a different future even when the path there is difficult. I want them to remember that I was at the swim lessons and volleyball practices. I want them to remember me cheering from the sidelines. But I also want them to remember seeing textbooks open on the table, watching me study after they went to bed, celebrating my graduations, and knowing that they were part of every accomplishment. I am not pursuing higher education despite being a single mother. Motherhood has given my education an even greater purpose. Every late night, every sacrifice, and every moment when quitting would be easier is connected to the life I am determined to build. My children may not fully understand everything it takes for me to keep going right now. One day, I hope they will understand the most important part: I worked relentlessly to build our future, but I never wanted building that future to mean missing their present.

Growing up in a single parent, low income household taught me early that stability was never guaranteed. As I got older, I faced challenges of my own, including homelessness, addiction, incarceration, domestic violence, and becoming a single mother. There were periods of my life when surviving took priority over imagining a future. Those experiences could have defined what I believed was possible for me. Instead, they became the reason I refused to give up. After leaving high school, I earned my GED and eventually found my way back to education. In June 2026, I graduated summa cum laude from the University of Washington Tacoma with a degree in Social Welfare and a minor in Criminal Justice. Now, as a single mother of two, I am preparing to begin law school. My experiences have also shaped the work I do today. As a reentry education navigator, I help justice impacted individuals overcome barriers to education, housing, employment, and stability during and after incarceration. I know what it feels like to rebuild your life while navigating systems that were not designed with your circumstances in mind. That understanding allows me to meet people where they are while helping them see where they can go. I am pursuing law because I want to take that work further. My goal is to combine social work, lived experience, and legal advocacy to challenge policies that keep people trapped in cycles of poverty and system involvement. I want to expand access to education and opportunity while ensuring that people directly impacted by these systems have a voice in changing them. I cannot change where my story began, but I can use it to change what is possible for the people who come after me.

My path to social work has been shaped by both lived experience and a desire to create the kind of support that I once needed myself. I recently earned my Bachelor of Arts in Social Welfare from the University of Washington Tacoma and am continuing my education by pursuing a law degree. As someone who has experienced incarceration, addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, and other significant barriers, I understand what it feels like to navigate systems that often focus more on what is wrong with someone than on their strengths, potential, and circumstances. Those experiences ultimately became the foundation for the work I do today. I currently work with justice impacted individuals as a reentry education navigator, helping people during and after incarceration access higher education, resources, and opportunities. What motivates me to work with underserved communities is knowing how powerful it can be when even one person believes in someone during a time when they may struggle to believe in themselves. Education played a major role in changing the direction of my own life, but I did not get here alone. I had people with lived experience who helped me recognize that my past did not disqualify me from having a meaningful future. That support inspired me to provide the same thing for others. My responsibility as a social worker is not to come into a community believing I have all the answers. I believe meaningful social work requires listening to people, recognizing their expertise in their own lives, and working alongside them to determine what support will actually be helpful. Underserved communities often face barriers created by policies, institutions, and systems rather than individual choices alone. Telling someone to work harder does little when they are facing housing instability, poverty, discrimination, a criminal record, lack of transportation, or policies that restrict their access to education and employment. Because of this, I see my responsibility as extending beyond helping individuals navigate existing systems. Social workers should also be willing to question why those systems are so difficult to navigate in the first place. In my work, I want to continue using both my education and lived experience to advocate for changes that make education, housing, employment, and other opportunities more accessible. Ultimately, I intend to contribute positively to society by bridging direct service, advocacy, and law. My experiences have taught me that people should not be permanently defined by the hardest periods of their lives. I want to help create systems that recognize people's strengths and provide meaningful opportunities to move forward. As I continue my education and career, my goal is to ensure that people who have historically been excluded from decision making are not only supported but included in shaping the policies and programs that directly affect their lives.

My interest in advocating for stronger sexual assault and domestic violence laws comes from more than what I have learned in the classroom. As a survivor of domestic violence, a social welfare and criminal justice graduate, and an incoming law student, I have seen how much the language of the law matters. When the law does not recognize the full reality of someone's experience, survivors can be left without accountability, protection, or even acknowledgment that what happened to them was wrong. That is why I believe rape by fraud and rape by deception deserve greater recognition in both public conversations and criminal law. Consent should be informed and freely given. When someone intentionally uses deception about a material fact to obtain sexual access they know another person would otherwise refuse, that deception directly interferes with the person's ability to make a meaningful decision about their own body. My advocacy would focus on education, survivor centered policy, and legislative reform. I would work alongside survivors, advocates, service providers, and legal professionals to raise awareness about how fraud and deception can be used to bypass consent. As I enter the legal field, I also want to advocate for laws that recognize these forms of sexual violence while clearly defining what conduct qualifies. The goal should not be to criminalize every lie told within an intimate relationship. The law should address intentional and material deception used specifically to obtain sexual activity that would not have occurred if the truth were known. If I were presenting before a state legislative committee, my strongest argument would be that consent must apply to what actually occurred, not what someone was intentionally deceived into believing was occurring. A misunderstanding and intentional deception are not the same thing. A misunderstanding can happen without either person intending to violate the other's boundaries. Fraud requires someone to deliberately manipulate another person's understanding in order to influence their decision. When that manipulation is used to gain access to another person's body, we should take the violation of autonomy seriously. My experiences have taught me that laws do more than determine whether someone can be prosecuted. They also communicate whose experiences are recognized and whose harm matters. Survivors already face significant barriers to reporting sexual and domestic violence. When the law itself does not recognize how consent can be intentionally bypassed, it creates another barrier to accountability. As an aspiring attorney, I want to use my education and lived experience to advocate for laws that better reflect the realities survivors face. Expanding sexual assault legislation to address carefully defined forms of fraud and deception would affirm a basic principle: every person has the right to make informed decisions about their own body. If consent is what distinguishes consensual sexual activity from sexual assault, then intentional deception used to bypass that consent cannot simply be dismissed as a misunderstanding.

I deserve this scholarship because I understand the value of educational opportunity in a way that few people ever will. College was never something I assumed would be part of my future. In fact, there was a time when simply surviving each day felt like a greater challenge than pursuing a degree. For more than a decade, my life was defined by addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, and involvement with the criminal justice system. I dropped out of high school, earned my GED, and spent years believing that higher education was something meant for other people. The barriers in front of me felt insurmountable. Financial instability, trauma, and systemic obstacles made college seem impossible. Yet I refused to let my past determine my future. The turning point came when I became a mother. Looking at my children, I realized that if I wanted them to have a different future, I had to create one myself. I made the difficult decision to rebuild my life from the ground up. I sought treatment, committed to my recovery, and returned to school despite every reason to believe I would fail. Since then, I have maintained academic excellence, graduated from the University of Washington Tacoma with honors, and earned recognition including the Washington Governor's Student Civic Leadership Award, Husky 100, and Outstanding Student Volunteer Award. This fall, I will begin law school to pursue a career in public interest law. What gives me an advantage over other applicants is not simply my resilience. It is my proven commitment to turning personal success into community impact. Every achievement I have earned has become an opportunity to help someone else achieve theirs. Throughout college, I served as a peer navigator supporting justice impacted students pursuing higher education. I founded and led a student organization that created community and support for formerly incarcerated and justice impacted students. Today, I work as a Community Based Corrections Education Navigator, helping incarcerated, formerly incarcerated, and justice impacted individuals throughout Pierce County access college, workforce training, financial aid, and career opportunities. Every day, I work with people who are facing the same barriers I once faced. Because I have lived those experiences, I can help them see possibilities they may not yet see for themselves. This scholarship is an investment that will extend far beyond my own education. It will help support a future attorney dedicated to expanding access to justice, educational opportunity, and economic mobility for underserved communities. My goal is to advocate for policies and systems that remove barriers to success and create pathways for individuals and families to thrive. I want to help people secure stable housing, access education, reunify with their children, overcome the collateral consequences of criminal records, and build sustainable futures. Perhaps most importantly, this scholarship will help me continue breaking generational cycles for my family. My children have witnessed the transformation of our lives through education. They have seen me study late into the night, balance work and school, overcome obstacles, and achieve goals that once seemed impossible. By pursuing higher education and a legal career, I am showing them that their circumstances do not define their potential. I am building a foundation that will create opportunities not only for me, but for future generations of my family. Many applicants are capable and deserving. What sets me apart is that I have already demonstrated how I will use this opportunity. My education has never been solely about personal advancement. It has always been about creating opportunities for others, strengthening my community, and ensuring that people who have been overlooked or counted out have access to the same possibilities that transformed my life. This scholarship would help me continue that work and expand the impact I am determined to make for years to come.

My commitment to ending intimate partner violence is deeply personal. As a survivor of domestic violence, I understand the fear, isolation, and instability that often accompany abusive relationships. I also understand how domestic violence rarely exists in isolation. In my own life, it intersected with addiction, homelessness, poverty, involvement with the criminal justice system, and the loss of stability for my family. These experiences showed me that intimate partner violence is not simply a private issue between two individuals. It is a complex social problem that affects housing, employment, education, health, family relationships, and long term economic security. Through my education in Social Welfare and Criminal Justice at the University of Washington Tacoma, I have gained a deeper understanding of the systemic barriers survivors face when attempting to leave abusive situations. Many existing initiatives provide critical services such as emergency shelter, legal advocacy, counseling, and safety planning. Through my work with youth experiencing homelessness, justice impacted individuals, and families navigating complex systems, I have seen firsthand how these resources can save lives. At the same time, I have also witnessed the gaps that remain. Survivors often struggle to access stable housing, educational opportunities, employment pathways, affordable childcare, and long term support after the immediate crisis has passed. My experiences have reinforced my belief that addressing intimate partner violence requires more than crisis intervention. Survivors need opportunities to rebuild their lives and achieve lasting stability. Education has been one of the most transformative tools in my own journey. After overcoming addiction, homelessness, and domestic violence, higher education provided me with a pathway to regain confidence, develop leadership skills, and create a future for myself and my children. It allowed me to move from surviving to thriving. As I begin law school and pursue a career in public interest law, I intend to use my education to strengthen efforts that support survivors beyond immediate safety. I hope to advocate for policies that expand access to legal services, housing, education, and economic opportunities for survivors and their families. I am particularly interested in addressing the barriers faced by individuals who are impacted by both domestic violence and involvement with the criminal justice system, populations that are often overlooked in traditional service models. My goal is to help create systems that recognize survivors as more than victims of violence. They are parents, students, workers, leaders, and community members with tremendous potential. By combining my lived experience, professional work in social services and reentry, and future legal education, I hope to contribute to more holistic approaches that promote safety, healing, empowerment, and long term success. Ultimately, I want to help build communities where survivors have access not only to protection, but also to the resources and opportunities necessary to create stable, fulfilling lives for themselves and future generations. In doing so, I hope to help break cycles of violence, strengthen families, and ensure that others have access to the same opportunities for transformation that changed the course of my own life.

My vision is rooted in the belief that everyone deserves access to opportunity, regardless of their past mistakes or the circumstances they were born into. For much of my life, I experienced the barriers that many people in my community face, including addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, and involvement with the criminal justice system. There were many times when I felt excluded from education, employment, and opportunities that others often take for granted. Those experiences shaped not only who I am today, but also the impact I hope to make through my education and future legal career. I am pursuing a law degree because I want to use the law as a tool to expand access to justice, education, and opportunity for underserved communities. My goal is to become a public interest attorney focused on criminal justice reform, reentry advocacy, and family stability. I hope to help individuals and families navigate complex systems, remove barriers created by criminal records, and access the resources they need to build stable and successful lives. Through both direct legal representation and policy advocacy, I want to create pathways that allow people to move beyond survival and toward long term success. The people who inspire me most are my children. Becoming a mother forced me to confront the reality of the life I was living and the future I wanted for them. I knew I wanted something different, not only for myself but for the next generation. My education is helping me break cycles that have impacted my family for generations. By earning my degree and attending law school, I am showing my children that no matter where you start, your future is not defined by your past. I want them to grow up believing that perseverance, education, and service can create opportunities that once seemed impossible. I am also inspired by the countless justice impacted individuals I have worked alongside through my roles as a peer navigator, community based corrections education navigator, and advocate. Every day I meet people with incredible potential who are held back by systemic barriers rather than a lack of ability or determination. Their resilience motivates me to continue this work and fight for systems that recognize people's strengths rather than defining them by their mistakes. Ultimately, I hope to create lasting change by helping build communities where people have genuine opportunities to belong, succeed, and thrive. Whether through legal advocacy, education, policy reform, or community leadership, I want to ensure that others have access to the support and opportunities that helped transform my own life. My goal is not simply to help individuals overcome barriers, but to help change the systems that create those barriers in the first place. In doing so, I hope to leave a legacy of empowerment, equity, and opportunity for future generations.

Incarceration and involvement with the criminal justice system had a profound impact on my life. It created barriers that extended far beyond my sentence, affecting my housing stability, employment opportunities, education, and sense of self worth. For many years, I struggled with addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, and the stigma associated with having a criminal record. There were times when I believed my mistakes would permanently define my future and limit what I could achieve. However, those experiences also taught me resilience, accountability, and the importance of community support. Recovery required me to take responsibility for my actions while also learning how to navigate systems that were often difficult to access and understand. Along the way, I encountered mentors, educators, and advocates who saw my potential rather than my past. Their support showed me the transformative power of education and second chances. My experiences with incarceration ultimately shaped both my academic and career ambitions. When I returned to school, I was determined to create a different future for myself and my children. What began as a personal goal quickly grew into a passion for helping others facing similar barriers. Through my studies in Social Welfare and Criminal Justice, my work as a Husky Post Prison Pathways Peer Navigator, and now my role as a Community Based Corrections Education Navigator at Pierce College, I have been able to support justice impacted individuals as they pursue education, employment, and personal growth. These experiences have also inspired my decision to attend law school. I have seen firsthand how legal barriers can affect individuals and families long after involvement with the justice system has ended. My goal is to become an attorney focused on expanding access to justice, advocating for policies that promote successful reentry, and helping individuals overcome the collateral consequences of a criminal record. Incarceration changed the course of my life, but it did not define my future. Instead, it gave me a deeper understanding of the challenges many people face and a commitment to ensuring that others have access to the opportunities and support they need to succeed.

The legal profession carries immense responsibility because attorneys are entrusted not only with advocating for clients, but also with protecting the integrity of the justice system itself. The ABA Model Rules of Professional Conduct recognize that ethical lawyering requires more than simply winning cases. It requires honesty, accountability, fairness, confidentiality, competence, and respect for the dignity of others. As someone whose life has been directly impacted by poverty, addiction, domestic violence, and the criminal legal system, I understand how deeply legal systems affect real people and families. These experiences have shaped my belief that the law should be practiced with both integrity and humanity. Through my academic and professional experiences, I have worked closely with justice impacted individuals navigating barriers related to housing, education, reentry, and stigma. As a peer navigator and overnight case manager, I have learned that advocacy is most effective when it is grounded in trust, transparency, and ethical responsibility. People often come to systems in moments of vulnerability, and professionals hold significant power in shaping outcomes. Because of this, I plan to approach legal practice with a strong commitment to honesty and ethical decision making, even in situations where doing so may be difficult or unpopular. Zealous advocacy is an important duty of attorneys, but I believe it becomes dangerous when the pursuit of victory outweighs truth, fairness, or respect for the legal process. Advocacy should never involve misleading courts, exploiting vulnerable individuals, intentionally escalating harm, or using unethical tactics simply because they may benefit a client in the short term. Attorneys can advocate fiercely while still maintaining professionalism and integrity. To me, the line is crossed when advocacy prioritizes winning over justice or creates harm that undermines public trust in the legal system. I plan to navigate this boundary by remaining grounded in ethical rules, seeking mentorship and accountability, and continuously reflecting on the broader impact my decisions have on individuals and communities. My commitment to ethics is also deeply connected to my commitment to diversity and inclusion within the legal field. Many marginalized communities experience the legal system as inaccessible, intimidating, or discriminatory. I know firsthand how representation, support, and advocacy can change the trajectory of someone’s life. Throughout my time at the University of Washington Tacoma, I have worked to support underrepresented and justice impacted students through leadership, mentorship, and advocacy. As president of the Formerly Incarcerated Student Association and through my work with Husky Post Prison Pathways, I have helped create spaces where students impacted by incarceration feel seen, supported, and capable of succeeding in higher education. In the future, I hope to continue contributing to underrepresented communities through legal advocacy, mentorship, and policy reform work focused on expanding access to education, legal resources, and equitable opportunities. As I begin my legal education at Vermont Law and Graduate School, I intend to carry forward the belief that ethical lawyering is not separate from diversity and inclusion efforts, but essential to them. Integrity, fairness, and accountability help create legal systems where all people, especially those historically marginalized, are treated with dignity and respect. I hope to become an attorney who not only advocates effectively, but also helps build trust in systems that too often fail the communities most impacted by injustice.

Free expression has played a central role in both my personal journey and my professional and academic work. As someone directly impacted by addiction, homelessness, domestic violence, and the criminal legal system, I understand how often marginalized individuals are silenced, dismissed, or reduced to stereotypes. My commitment to free expression comes from believing that people should have the ability to share their stories, advocate for themselves, and challenge harmful systems without fear of being ignored or dehumanized. At the University of Washington Tacoma, I have used academic writing, leadership, and advocacy to elevate conversations around incarceration, education, and justice reform. As president of the Formerly Incarcerated Student Association and a peer navigator with Husky Post Prison Pathways, I have worked to create spaces where justice impacted students feel safe being visible and heard in higher education. Many students impacted by incarceration carry stigma that discourages them from speaking openly about their experiences. I believe free expression is essential in breaking that silence and challenging assumptions about who belongs in academic and professional spaces. My academic work has also reflected this commitment. In several research and public writing projects, I have explored issues such as educational inequality among formerly incarcerated people, media portrayals of justice impacted communities, and why college after incarceration should not be treated as a “miracle story,” but as a normal and supported pathway. I am passionate about making complex social issues accessible to broader audiences because public understanding often shapes policy, opportunity, and treatment of marginalized groups. Outside the classroom, I have participated in advocacy and civic engagement work through leadership roles, volunteer work, and public speaking opportunities focused on justice reform and educational access. I have learned that free expression is not only about protecting speech, but also about ensuring people have the opportunity, confidence, and platform to speak in the first place. Many communities are excluded from public conversations because of stigma, poverty, trauma, or institutional barriers. Part of my work has been helping individuals reclaim their voices and recognize that their experiences and perspectives matter. As I prepare to attend Vermont Law and Graduate School this fall, I hope to continue using advocacy, writing, and law to protect the rights and dignity of marginalized communities. I believe free expression is fundamental to social change because meaningful reform cannot happen when people are silenced, erased, or afraid to speak. I want to help build a future where people are not punished for speaking their truth, but empowered to use their voices to create change, challenge injustice, and redefine what is possible for themselves and their communities.