It is difficult for me to articulate what I love most about math, but I am going to attempt to do so in this essay. Math is logical. Math makes sense. Applying formulas to solving problems is easy to do because it is systematic. Throughout high school in a world post-global pandemic, when there seems to be drama around every corner, math provides a reliable and comforting predictability that starkly contrasts to anything I hear on the news stations or from my friends experiencing their own existential crises. My passion for all things mathematical positively contributes to my desired future career in business management. In fact, I am anxiously awaiting my upcoming college courses in my declared major of business management, as well as in my minor of healthcare administration, at one of the top-ranked business programs in the Midwest: the University of Kansas School of Business, where I have already been admitted and have accepted my admission. Combining my love for mathematics with my passion for helping patients with special needs, it is my dream to one day open and run a rehabilitation facility that provides occupational, physical, and speech therapies to patients with special needs, like my brother, Truman. It wasn't until after his major stroke in July 2023 at age 17 that I realized that the rehabilitation facilities in my metropolitan area focus mostly on geriatric patients. While I have a strong affinity for geriatric patients, in fact, my 86 year-old great grandfather is my favorite person on the planet, I am even more passionate about making a positive difference for those with special needs.

To fully understand who I am we need to go all the way back to the beginning of my story. I am Kennedy Graham, the daughter of a single mother from my birth and a thirteen month younger sister of a brother with severe special needs and medical fragility. My brother, Truman, has Autism, Global Developmental Delay, ADHD, PTSD, Left Ventricular Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, Epilepsy, and he also suffered a major stroke in July of 2023 which left him hospitalized for 50 days during which he had an 8.5 hour open-heart surgery. I am like a second mother, and caregiver to my brother. My mom is an elementary school teacher in an inner-city urban school district nearby and has always had to leave before us to drive to her school, so it has been my responsibility to make sure that I get my brother to and from school. I also have other caregiver responsibilities, which have increased as I have gotten older. Through my Sports Medicine 21st Century Academy I have acquired a great deal of medical knowledge, which has honestly just confirmed most of what I have already learned by being with my brother and mom for all of his medical appointments over the years. In the spring of 2024 I decided to go ahead and get my CNA to be even better prepared to handle any and all of his medical emergencies as they arise. I took the CNA courses every Saturday from March through May, and passed the state licensing examination. The reason why I provided all of this context in this essay is because it helps the reader understand why I am so passionate about what I have decided that I want to do for my future career. It is my dream to open up and own a therapeutic center which provides physical, occupational, and speech therapy to people with special needs, like Truman. This essay, this application is all part of my journey to fulfill that dream, not only for me, but for all of the Trumans of the world. One of the ways in which my brother, and his friends with special needs, temporarily “forgets” about the aspects that deem him as “differently-abled” is through the participation in recreational opportunities, such as those provided by Special Olympics. When Truman and his friends play together in the pools during adaptive recreational opportunities they focus instead on how much fun they are having rather than on how they are different from their same-aged peers. Aligned with my growth-mindset, I would prefer to build upon what they CAN do. This is the mindset that I intend to carry into my college courses, which this scholarship would help to support. Thank you for your consideration, and for making this scholarship available for students like me. The way I plan to accomplish my goal is by hopefully earning enough scholarship money to be able to afford to go to the University of Kansas, where I have been accepted into their business management program. Simultaneously, I intend to minor in healthcare administration. By combining these two programs along with the exceptional Sports Medicine 21st Century Academy program high endorsement that I have earned throughout my high school career at Olathe North, and my additional CNA license, I believe that I will have the knowledge to compliment the hands-on experience that my internships, work expertise, and life of being a sibling of a medically fragile and special needs brother to turn my dreams into my reality, for the betterment of an entire population of underserved, yet incredibly deserving, individuals.

To fully understand who I am we need to go all the way back to the beginning of my story. I am Kennedy Graham, the daughter of a single mother from my birth and a thirteen month younger sister of a brother with severe special needs and medical fragility. My brother, Truman, has Autism, Global Developmental Delay, ADHD, PTSD, Left Ventricular Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, Epilepsy, and he also suffered a major stroke in July of 2023 which left him hospitalized for 50 days during which he had an 8.5 hour open-heart surgery. I am like a second mother, and caregiver to my brother. My mom is an elementary school teacher in an inner-city urban school district nearby and has always had to leave before us to drive to her school, so it has been my responsibility to make sure that I get my brother to and from school. I also have other caregiver responsibilities, which have increased as I have gotten older. Through my Sports Medicine 21st Century Academy I have acquired a great deal of medical knowledge, which has honestly just confirmed most of what I have already learned by being with my brother and mom for all of his medical appointments over the years. In the spring of 2024 I decided to go ahead and get my CNA to be even better prepared to handle any and all of his medical emergencies as they arise. I took the CNA courses every Saturday from March through May, and passed the state licensing examination. The reason why I provided all of this context in this essay is because it helps the reader understand why I am so passionate about what I have decided that I want to do for my future career. It is my dream to open up and own a therapeutic center which provides physical, occupational, and speech therapy to people with special needs, like Truman. This essay, this application is all part of my journey to fulfill that dream, not only for me, but for all of the Trumans of the world. One of the ways in which my brother, and his friends with special needs, temporarily “forgets” about the aspects that deem him as “differently-abled” is through the participation in recreational opportunities, such as those provided by Special Olympics. When Truman and his friends play together in the pools during adaptive recreational opportunities they focus instead on how much fun they are having rather than on how they are different from their same-aged peers. Aligned with my growth-mindset, I would prefer to build upon what they CAN do. This is the mindset that I intend to carry into my college courses, which this scholarship would help to support. Thank you for your consideration, and for making this scholarship available for students like me. The way I plan to accomplish my goal is by hopefully earning enough scholarship money to be able to afford to go to the University of Kansas, where I have been accepted into their business management program. Simultaneously, I intend to minor in healthcare administration. By combining these two programs along with the exceptional Sports Medicine 21st Century Academy program high endorsement that I have earned throughout my high school career at Olathe North, and my additional CNA license, I believe that I will have the knowledge to compliment the hands-on experience that my internships, work expertise, and life of being a sibling of a medically fragile and special needs brother to turn my dreams into my reality, for the betterment of an entire population of underserved, yet incredibly deserving, individuals.

During the summer of 2024 my seventeen year-old brother, Truman, suffered a major stroke while we were on vacation in the New England States. Our family consists of me, my single mom, and my brother who is thirteen months older than me. At the time my mom and I didn't know what was happening with him, but we knew that he was experiencing a severe medical concern and we knew that we needed to get back to his home hospital in Kansas City where all of his medical records are easily accessible. Throughout the entire crisis we remained in constant communication through prayer with our Heavenly Father to provide us guidance and safety as we rushed back to the Midwest. Unfortunately, during our trip back home we had to change planes in Baltimore. While we were waiting for our plane to arrive so that we could board it, my mom and I decided that we had enough time to use the nearby restroom, so we left Truman sitting in a wheelchair in the waiting area at the gate. We weren't gone for a total of two minutes when we heard my mom's name being paged over the overhead PA system to return immediately to the gate. When we got back there we straightaway saw that Truman was no longer sitting in the wheelchair, but instead he was lying on the floor with people surrounding him on all sides. An airport paramedic and Medivac physician had to both complete numerous tests on him and sign off that it was safe for him to make the last leg of our flight back to Kansas City, which they thankfully did. As soon as we arrived at the Kansas City airport Truman was the first person evacuated from the plane, but by this time he had lost all of his ability to move his limbs, or control his bladder or his bowels, so a transfer wheelchair that is slender enough to slide in between the rows of aircraft seats had to be used with the assistance of four airline employees and myself to hoist my 6'2" 287 pound brother out of his seat from the plane and onto the aisle wheelchair and off of the plane. From there an ambulance was waiting to escort him directly to the hospital from the Tarmac. Passengers on our plane along with airline staff joined us in prayer as we made that final flight from Baltimore to Kansas City that late July day. Once we arrived at the hospital, my mother and brother from the ambulance, and I with all of our vacation luggage and our personal car from long-term parking, a battery of tests were run on my brother in the emergency room, and while he was admitted to the cardiac intensive care unit of the hospital, where he spent the next fifty days. It took the medical experts about 48 hours to determine that Truman had experienced a massive stroke and that his body was in Sepsis due to red ant bites that he had received on his behind from sitting on the sidewalk on a previous vacation to California a week before we went to Boston. Since he has special needs, he had scratched all of those red ant bites open on his buttocks, which is how infection entered his bloodstream and became a source for multiple health concerns, one of which was the stroke. During his hospitalization Truman also had to undergo an 8.5 hour open heart surgery to remove infection from his compromised heart tissue. By the grace of God Truman lives today.

I am Kennedy Graham, the daughter of a single mother from my birth, and a thirteen month younger sister of a brother with severe special needs and medical fragility. My brother, Truman, has Autism, Global Developmental Delay, ADHD, PTSD, Left Ventricular Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, Epilepsy, and he also suffered a major stroke in July of 2023 which left him hospitalized for 50 days during which he had an 8.5 hour open-heart surgery. I am like a second mother, and caregiver to my brother. My mom is an elementary school teacher in an inner-city urban school district nearby, which means that she works outside of our home in order to financially provide for our family, so I have been making sure that my brother safely gets to and from school for years since our schedule is similar. I also have other caregiver responsibilities, which have increased as I have gotten older. Through my Sports Medicine 21st Century Academy I have acquired a great deal of medical knowledge, which has honestly just confirmed most of what I have already learned by being with my brother and mom for all of his medical appointments over the years. In the spring of 2024, I decided to go ahead and get my CNA to be even better prepared to handle any and all of his medical emergencies as they arise. I took the CNA courses every Saturday from March through May, and passed the state licensing examination with ease on my first attempt. The reason why I provided all of this context in this essay is because it helps the reader understand why I am so passionate about what I have decided that I want to do for my future career. It is my dream to open up and own a therapeutic center which provides physical, occupational, and speech therapy to people with special needs, like Truman. This essay, this application is all part of my journey to fulfill that dream, not only for me, but for all of the Trumans of the world. One of the ways in which my brother, and his friends with special needs, temporarily “forgets” about the aspects that deem him as “differently-abled” is through the participation in recreational opportunities, such as those provided by Special Olympics. When Truman and his friends play together in the pools during adaptive recreational opportunities they focus instead on how much fun they are having rather than on how they are different from their same-aged peers. Aligned with my growth-mindset, I would prefer to build upon what they CAN do. This is the mindset that I intend to carry into my college courses, which this scholarship would help to support. Thank you for your consideration, and for making this scholarship available for students like me. The way I plan to accomplish my goal is by hopefully earning enough scholarship money to be able to afford to go to the University of Kansas, where I have been accepted into their business management program. Simultaneously, I intend to minor in healthcare administration. By combining these programs along with the exceptional Sports Medicine 21st Century Academy program high endorsement that I have earned throughout my high school career at Olathe North, and my additional CNA license, I believe that I will have the knowledge to compliment the hands-on experience that my internships, work expertise, and life of being a sibling of a medically fragile and special needs brother to turn my dreams into my reality, for the betterment of an entire population of underserved, yet incredibly deserving, individuals.