Growing up I had to take care of my sister while my mom worked two to three jobs to support us. She was a single mother with two children trying to make ends meet everywhere she could. While this affected me mentally, as I felt like I never got to experience a proper childhood due to taking care of another child. Due to my mother not having a lot of money, we had to shop at places like thrift stores and get food from the food banks just to make ends meet. While the clothes from the thrift stores were fine to me, it made me a target at school. I started getting bullied for my clothes, then when I told my mom and she was able to sew the holes in my clothes, I started getting bullied for being the smartest in the class. While I felt proud of that fact, it was just another reason to get bullied. It got so bad one time while the teacher turned her back to write something on the board the two main people who bullied me started harassing me to a point where they started to throw the heavy history textbooks at me all while the teacher wasn't looking. As I was about to retaliate, the teacher turned around and blamed me for all the books on the floor because I was in the position of throwing one. This broke me because she was the same teacher I thought had my back. I would always confess to her about what the other students were doing but she always pushed it off. This affected me because I felt like I would never be enough. Not only did I have to take care of my younger sister as a middle schooler, but I had to put up with the emotional turmoil at school. I would always ask to go to the bathroom but it was to cry it out and call my mom. Most of the time she didn't answer because she was working. So I was always left feeling hurt and isolated. After this kept happening for months, the bullies switched their tactics and started to talk about my hair. That was the only insecurity I had, and they found it. I always loved having my hair in a puff ball on the top of my head because it felt freeing. My Afro felt a little too much at times, with students complaining they couldn't see past my hair. Well, one day after months of trying to get under my skin they started talking about my hair, saying it was ugly, uncombed, and I looked like a boy. Not only did this break me mentally but physically. I felt so much rage and sadness that I started pulling at my hair because I felt so tired of the bullying. The bullying never stopped and I had to transfer schools for attempting suicide due to the bullying. After switching schools, the people were better but my anxiety habits started. When people got too close to me, or it sounded like they were about to talk about me, I would start pulling at my hair. This pattern of pulling my hair when feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or targeted, known as trichotillomania, has become embedded into my life. I now have bald spots from all the times I felt like I couldn't speak up. To avoid pulling out my hair in those situations, I hide my hands under my legs while sitting, and count to ten and then back to one. This method has helped me.

Growing up, "no" was never just a word in our house, it was a reality we navigated daily. As the child of a single parent, I learned early that resources were limited, but expectations were not. My mom worked three jobs to make sure my sister and I had what we needed, and in watching that sacrifice, I internalized something that no classroom could teach me, that survival requires both resilience and community. There were moments I wanted to quit. Times when financial stress at home made focusing on school feel impossible, when the weight of uncertainty made the future feel out of reach. But giving up was never truly an option not when I had seen firsthand what determination looked like, modeled for me every single day. What kept me grounded was my community. And what broke my heart was watching it be ignored. I grew up seeing my neighborhood overlooked, under-resourced, and underestimated. That pain didn't defeat me, it directed me. I decided that if systems weren't going to show up for people like us, then I would dedicate my life to filling that gap. Today, I am a Program Manager at a nonprofit serving older adults in the very community I came from. I am pursuing my Master of Social Work at Howard University, focused on community advocacy and policy because I know that lasting change requires working from both the ground up and the systems down. Every program I build, every elder I connect to resources, every barrier I help dismantle is a direct extension of the child who grew up watching her community struggle and refused to look away. My experience didn't just shape me. It assigned me a purpose.

Growing up, my mother made it a point to take my sister and me out into our community to volunteer. She wanted us to understand that being a good person meant more than just living well for yourself. It meant contributing to the world around you. What she could not have known then was just how deeply that lesson would take root in me and ultimately shape the entire direction of my life. After graduating high school and heading into college, I found myself drawn to every opportunity I could find to give back. I participated in runs for philanthropic causes (m.s., Alzheimer’s,etc.), volunteered at food banks, and spent time at the Boys and Girls Club working alongside young people who just needed someone to show up for them. These were not obligations. They were expressions of who I genuinely am. I love helping people. I always have. That love eventually led me to a career rooted in service. Today, I work as a Program Manager at Neighborhood Companions, Inc., a nonprofit based in Baltimore County dedicated to addressing social isolation among older adults. In this role I lead day to day programming, manage volunteer recruitment and training, and drive grant writing efforts that keep the organization growing and sustainable. This work has expanded both my mind and my sense of what is truly possible when people come together around a shared mission. Through this work I have had the privilege of meeting people from all different backgrounds who are working to solve the same critical problem: how do we help aging adults remain in their communities with dignity, connection, and adequate support? What I have learned is that while the goal is the same, the approaches, the resources, and the barriers look very different depending on the community. That understanding has only deepened my commitment to advocacy and systemic change. I am currently pursuing a Master of Social Work degree at Howard University, with a concentration in community advocacy, administration, and policy. This program is giving me the theoretical foundation and analytical tools to complement the hands on experience I have built over years of direct service and program management. Together, these two dimensions of my training are preparing me to do more than run needed programs. They are preparing me to help shape the policies and systems that determine how resources flow to the communities that need them most. Because the truth is, so many of the communities I serve are what I would describe as overserved on paper and underrepresented in practice. There are programs. There are initiatives. But the people closest to the problem are rarely the ones at the table making decisions. I want to change that. I want to be the voice that those communities deserve to have in rooms where policy gets written and priorities get set. My goal is to develop and implement policies that move us toward a more equitable and compassionate society. I envision communities where adequate resources are the standard, not the exception. Where neighbors look out for each other. Where asking for help is met with dignity rather than shame. I do not just want to be a part of that change. I want to help lead it. This scholarship would bring me one meaningful step closer to doing exactly that.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​