Life’s challenges often come unannounced, and some shake us to our core. In September 2024, I faced one of the most devastating experiences a parent can endure. I lost my 21-year-old son, Donovan, to suicide. His death was a rupture in my world that forced me to confront the harsh realities of mental health, stigma, and systemic failure in ways I never expected. For years, Donovan struggled quietly. He carried a pain that was largely invisible to those around him. His aspiration was to become a teacher. This was a role through which he hoped to offer belonging and support to students often overlooked or misunderstood. Yet, despite his kindness and brilliance, he battled forces that education and mental health systems were not equipped to address effectively. I am now a single mother to a 16-year-old daughter who, like me, is learning to navigate the complex and painful journey of grief. Together, we face each day with a mixture of sorrow and hope, drawing strength from one another while processing a loss that has reshaped our family forever. Supporting her through this process deepens my understanding of resilience and the critical importance of mental health care at every age. This personal tragedy profoundly reshaped my life and perspective. I learned firsthand how pervasive mental health challenges are, how often they remain hidden, and how devastating their consequences can be when ignored. But I also saw the power of perseverance - not just mine, but Donovan’s, and that of the many youth and families I serve as Executive Director of a nonprofit supporting those in crisis. My journey since Donovan’s passing has been one of grief, reflection, and determination. I am returning to school at age 42 to pursue a degree in special education, with a mission to build classrooms that prioritize emotional safety, trauma-informed care, and resilience. I want to create environments where students don’t have to mask their pain or struggle in silence, where mental health is openly discussed and supported. This path has been both a tribute to Donovan and a commitment to prevent others from falling through the cracks. The perseverance required to navigate loss, continue working full-time, and pursue higher education is immense. Yet, it fuels my resolve to transform pain into purpose. I believe stories like Donovan’s, and Elijah’s, must inspire change. Mental health and suicide are not just individual struggles; they are community challenges that require compassion, education, and systemic reform. I am honored to apply for the Elijah’s Helping Hand Scholarship, and I commit to carrying forward its mission by fostering hope and healing for others.

Mental health struggles don’t discriminate. They touch every community, every family, and every life in ways that are often hidden behind quiet smiles and daily routines. My own experience with mental health is deeply personal, marked by grief and an urgent call to change how we talk about, understand, and support those who suffer. In September 2024, my world was shattered when my 21-year-old son, Donovan, died by suicide. Donovan was brilliant, kind, and quietly determined to make a difference. He dreamed of becoming a teacher who would create classrooms where every student felt seen and valued. Losing him broke my heart in a way I never imagined possible. His pain, which had been invisible to many, became heartbreakingly clear in his absence. This loss forced me to confront the brutal truth. The truth that too many people suffer in silence, trapped by stigma and systems that fail to see or hear them. My journey through grief has been a raw and relentless teacher. It has reshaped my beliefs about mental health - from something whispered about behind closed doors to a vital conversation we must all have openly and honestly. I’ve learned that healing begins not in hiding our pain, but in shining light on it. Only then can we offer the empathy, understanding, and connection that so many desperately need. This journey has deepened my relationships, especially with my 16 year old daughter. Through the darkest days, we have found strength in each other, building resilience from shared sorrow and hope. My work as Executive Director of a nonprofit serving children and families in crisis has shown me how trauma echoes through communities, leaving many vulnerable and unheard. These experiences also fuel my commitment to create spaces where every voice matters and every story is honored. I aspire to become a special education teacher who goes beyond academics to nurture emotional safety and resilience. I want to stand beside students who feel unseen, to help them understand that their struggles do not define them - that they are worthy of care, respect, and belonging. I believe that schools must be places where mental health is embraced openly, where children learn early that seeking help is strength, not shame. Pursuing this path is my way of honoring Donovan’s memory. I want to transform the unbearable loss into a fierce determination to change how we support mental health. I want to be part of a future where silence gives way to conversation, where stigma is replaced by compassion, and where every person’s mental wellbeing is recognized as essential to living fully. Especially in the classroom where we help shape young minds to take on the tolls of the world that awaits them. Receiving this scholarship would lighten the financial burden of returning to school at 42, yes. But more than that, it would be a powerful affirmation that stories like yours and mine matter. That grief can be transformed into purpose, and that together, we can bring the darkness into the light. Thank you for your courage in creating this opportunity and for your dedication to breaking the silence around mental health.

Some people go back to school to pursue a new career. I am going back to school to pursue a new life. A life rooted in healing, purpose, and hope. After losing my 21-year-old son, Donovan, to suicide in 2024, I needed a way to keep living without abandoning the love and dreams that defined our bond. I’m now a 42-year-old undergraduate student majoring in education, and my goal is to become a high school special education teacher - because Donovan always wanted to be one. Donovan dreamed of becoming the kind of teacher who would make the kids on the margins feel like they belonged. He wanted to work in a public high school, help students who were misunderstood, and create a classroom where empathy and authenticity weren’t extra, they were essential. Though he never got the chance to teach in the traditional sense, he became the "teacher" who not only changed my life, he changed the entire course of it. Losing him broke something in me, but it also awakened a calling I can’t ignore. I work full-time as the Executive Director of a nonprofit in Washington State that supports children and families in crisis. I see every day how trauma, poverty, and instability affect a child’s ability to learn and grow. I also see how our education system often fails to understand these kids. We label them instead of listening. That’s what I want to change. I don’t come to teaching because it’s easy or convenient. I come to it because it’s necessary. Because I have lived, mothered, and grieved through the reasons it matters. I want to build classrooms that are trauma-informed, emotionally safe, and inclusive. Classrooms where students can show up as they are, with all their mess and beauty, and still be met with dignity and belief. Donovan’s memory is my compass. I carry his voice with me into every education class, every late-night homework session, every vision I have for the kind of teacher I want to be (and the teacher he would have been). He reminds me why this matters - not just to me, but to every student I’ll someday stand in front of. Teaching isn’t a fallback or a second act. It’s the culmination of everything I’ve lived through: the mother I’ve been, the leader I’ve become, and the student I still am. I may not be the traditional education major, but I bring something invaluable. I bring real-life experience, deep empathy, and an unwavering drive to build a future my son would be proud of. Thank you for considering my application and for honoring Marie Humphries’ legacy. Like her, Donovan believed that teaching was one of the most important things a person could do. I’m here now because of him - and for him - and for every student like him who just needs one adult to truly see them.

Seneca: Letter to Marcia on Consolation “I do not say to you, as most consolers do, that he was a youth, that others besides you have suffered the like, that tears are unavailing. I do not even say that he was a fine young man, though this too is true. All these things you know for yourself. And you would answer, I know that others have suffered, but my sorrow is mine; I know that my tears will not bring him back, but I grieve because I have lost him. You will not be roused by words that only touch the surface. I do not come to dry your tears, but to show you how to make them cease. I would not take them from you too soon. Let them flow; they are a relief to the heart that suffers. Only, let them not flow forever.” Thesis: Seneca argues that authentic grief should refine, not paralyze, the mourner. He urges us to distill pain into moral energy and to prove our love for the dead through purposeful living rather than endless lamentation. When I encountered this passage after losing my 21‑year‑old son, Donovan, to suicide, I felt as if Seneca were standing in my kitchen, naming every contradiction inside me. On one hand, I want to wail forever; on the other, I am responsible for a daughter, a household, and a nonprofit that shelters children in crisis. Seneca refuses to treat these impulses - mourning and moving forward - as mutually exclusive. Instead, he draws a stoic line between grief with use and grief without end, and in doing so he offers me a blueprint for rebuilding a life that still reveres my son. The opening sentence, “Nothing of what befalls us is unexpected”, is not cold fatalism; it is an intellectual shock meant to break the spell of “Why me?” Seneca reminds Marcia (and me) that mortality is the universal price of admission to life. Accepting that fact does not cheapen love; it clarifies our operating conditions. In a classroom, I would translate his point to my future students this way: the rules of the game did not target you personally, but knowing them lets you play better. Seneca’s next move is the metaphor of the “hostage to Fortune.” Every relationship is a hostage because affection makes us vulnerable to Fate’s call. Rather than advising detachment, he warns that attachment always carries risk. This warning is surprisingly compassionate: by admitting the inevitability of loss, he normalizes the raw fear I feel every time my daughter struggles in ways my late son did. Awareness, not denial, is Seneca’s path to steadiness. The heart of the paragraph distinguishes tribute from impotence. Genuine sorrow honors the worth of the lost; excessive sorrow, “clings to pain for pain’s sake.” That clause exposes something I rarely say aloud. Parts of my grief feel almost addictive. There is a perverse safety in re‑opening the wound because it keeps Donovan near. Seneca calls that impulse what it is - “impotence of spirit”. And then offers a discipline: extract what fortifies, discard what weakens. His language of distillation (“draw,” “wipe away”) re‑casts grieving as an active, almost alchemical process: raw anguish enters; clarified purpose exits. For me, that metamorphosis looks like returning to college at 42 to become a special‑education teacher and redesign classrooms for children scarred by trauma. These are the very kids my nonprofit serves and whom conventional schools often misread as defiant. It also looks like threading Donovan’s memory through everything I build, from policy drafts to bedtime recaps with my daughter, so that love becomes architecture, not residue. Seneca’s final sentence, “We honor the dead by how we live, not by how long we lament”, supplies both moral metric and career compass. If I turn my son’s story into safer learning environments, his influence expands beyond the 21 years he breathed. That is why this scholarship matters. It shortens the financial distance between my grief and its constructive expression. Funding my degree is not merely paying tuition. It is underwriting a conversion of private loss into public good. In practice, close reading this paragraph trains the very muscles I will teach my future students to use. I will teach them to extract principle from prose, translate abstract wisdom into daily action, and to resist the temptation to read experiences at surface level. My ambition is to cultivate classrooms where children do not “cherish the wound,” because an adult like me (someone sharpened, not shattered, by sorrow) has already modeled how to transform hurt into help. Seneca’s passage therefore acts as both mirror and map. It reflects my present ache and charts a road toward usefulness. By embracing grief’s proper bounds, I safeguard love, safeguard purpose, and safeguard the community I serve. That, I believe, is the truest consolation and the lasting impact this education will allow me to build.

This essay topic really excited me, thank you for creating this opportunity. I want to build trauma-informed classrooms, places where students who have been through hardship don’t just survive, but thrive. As a 42-year-old undergraduate student majoring in education, this goal is deeply personal. I currently serve as the Executive Director of a nonprofit in Washington State that supports children, youth, and families impacted by crisis, abuse, and homelessness. Every day, I see how early trauma disrupts a child’s ability to engage, connect, and learn. I see how traditional educational environments often overlook, mislabel, or marginalize these students. I’ve also seen it at home. In September 2024, I lost my 21-year-old son, Donovan, to suicide. He was bright, sensitive, and deeply misunderstood by the systems meant to support him. His loss nearly broke me, but it also galvanized my purpose: to become a special education teacher and ultimately influence how we educate and care for vulnerable students. Trauma-informed classrooms are not just about policies or lesson plans. They’re about relationships, mindset, and systemic change. I want to help build learning environments where emotional safety comes first, where students feel seen and supported, and where teachers are trained to recognize signs of distress rather than interpret them as defiance. I envision integrating mental health literacy, restorative practices, and inclusive teaching strategies into everyday instruction - especially in under-resourced communities where the need is greatest. Personally, this path is helping me rebuild my own life. After unimaginable grief, returning to school has given me hope and direction. But more importantly, it allows me to transform pain into purpose—not just for myself, but for the students I will serve. This scholarship would help alleviate the financial strain of pursuing higher education while working full-time and raising my 16 year old daughter by myself. But more than that, it would affirm that even those of us who take the nontraditional path, those who carry grief, responsibility, and experience into the classroom, have something valuable to offer. I’m not just trying to earn a degree. I’m trying to change what education looks like for children who need more than academics. I want to build systems that heal instead of harm, and classrooms where every student (especially the ones who’ve been left behind) has the chance to feel safe, connected, and capable. That is the future I’m building. And that’s the impact I hope to make. One child, one classroom, one life at a time. Thank you again for this opportunity and for taking the time to consider my submission.

If I could change one thing about education, it would be this: I would make emotional literacy, trauma awareness, and mental health a central pillar of every child’s educational experience. Not a side topic. Not an optional counseling referral. A core, structured, daily practice. I would do it because I lost my son, Donovan, to suicide at the age of 21. He was brilliant, sensitive, and deeply kind. He was also exhausted. Exhausted by years of trying to fit into systems that never made room for how he processed or related to the world. He did not make it. And that grief, not just of losing him but of watching the system fail to see him, is what drives me to return to school at the age of 42 to pursue a career in education. I currently serve as the Executive Director of a nonprofit that supports youth and families experiencing crisis. That includes everything from homelessness to abuse to abandonment. The children I work with every day are not broken. They are surviving environments that were not built for them. What I see over and over again is this: we ask children to function academically while ignoring their emotional safety. We reward compliance and punish distress. And then we wonder why students are falling through the cracks. Donovan fell through the cracks. He learned to mask, to manage, to perform. But no one taught him how to process, to regulate, or to ask for help in ways that truly reached him. And while his teachers cared, the system did not equip them to respond to what they did not understand. What I would change about education is simple. I would bring the human back to the center of it. We need trauma-informed classrooms where every educator understands the basics of how trauma impacts the brain and behavior. We need curricula that teach emotional regulation, self-awareness, and resilience, starting in kindergarten and evolving through high school. We need to destigmatize therapy, normalize asking for help, and create school environments where students with mental health struggles do not feel like outliers. They should feel like part of the design. We also need to support teachers in this work. Too many educators are expected to carry the emotional weight of their students without the training or the resources to do so. We expect teachers to manage kids who are in crisis, without giving them the tools to understand the roots of that crisis. If we want schools to be safe, inclusive, and growth-oriented spaces, we need to invest in training that goes beyond academics. That training should cover regulation, attachment, trauma response, and cultural humility. The system is overdue for this kind of change, and I plan to be part of it. My education is not just about getting a degree. It is about building credibility, deepening my understanding, and equipping myself to create real change from the inside out. I want to become a special education teacher and eventually work in school leadership to implement policies that prioritize whole-child development, not just performance metrics. I want to create classroom cultures where presence matters more than productivity, and where children learn not just how to succeed, but how to survive and stay. I also want to give back what I could not give my son in time: a space to be fully known, fully accepted, and fully human. That is what I think Sierra Argumedo wanted for her students. She wanted them to feel seen and loved. I understand that mission with every part of my being. Her story reminds me of Donovan’s and of my own. It reminds me of what happens when sensitive, giving people are not given the support they need to keep going. We lose them. And when we lose people like Sierra and Donovan, the world gets quieter, but not better. So if I could change anything in education, I would change everything that makes kids and teachers feel alone. I would give them the tools, the language, the space, and the support to feel like they matter beyond performance. I would make education the place where healing begins, not just where lessons are delivered. This scholarship would help me continue my education while I work full-time and raise my daughter. It would lighten the financial load so I can focus more fully on preparing to serve. But more than that, it would be a sign that stories like Sierra’s and Donovan’s are not lost. They are honored. They are transformed. They are carried forward by people like me, who refuse to let the next child fall through the cracks.

At 42 years old, I am returning to school not because my path has been easy, but because it has taught me something invaluable: we cannot change the past, but we can shape the future - for ourselves and for others. My journey has taken me through the trenches of both personal grief and community service. I currently serve as the Executive Director of a nonprofit in Washington that supports families and youth in crisis. Many of them facing homelessness, abuse, and systemic barriers. I’ve spent years advocating for the most vulnerable, writing grants, building programs, mentoring staff, and sitting across from children who have never known safety. My work has been meaningful, but it has also revealed how much more I need to grow. Then, in September of 2024, my world changed forever. My 21-year-old son, Donovan, died by suicide. The grief of losing a child is unspeakable, but it has clarified my purpose with sharp precision: I want to prevent this kind of loss for other families. I want to build systems that don't wait for crisis. I want to understand how to better support children before their pain becomes invisible. That is why I am returning to school to study education and mental health. I want to become an educator who not only teaches but transforms. I want to be part of a generation of professionals who bring trauma-informed, emotionally literate, and equity-driven practices into classrooms and communities. I’m not interested in doing things the way they’ve always been done, because I’ve seen who gets left behind when we do. My life experiences have shaped my values around compassion, accountability, and action. I believe in second chances because I’ve needed them. I believe in the power of listening because I’ve seen how silence harms. I believe in community care because I’ve lived through seasons where it was the only thing keeping me going. This scholarship would mean more than financial help. It would be an affirmation that it’s not too late to begin again. It would allow me to focus more fully on my education while continuing to serve my community. And it would bring me one step closer to transforming my lived experience into lasting change. I am not starting over. I am starting forward. With deeper wisdom, a stronger voice, and an unwavering commitment to making the world safer for the next generation. Thank you for supporting those choosing this path, and I appreciate your consideration.

Early childhood is where the world first leaves its imprint. It’s where a child learns whether the world is safe or dangerous, whether their voice matters, and whether someone will notice if they’re hurting. I’ve spent the last decade working with children and families who didn’t get what they needed early on and I’ve seen the consequences. That’s why I’m pursuing a degree in childhood education: to shift the trajectory before trauma takes root, and to help build systems that support children from the very beginning. As the Executive Director of a nonprofit serving at-risk youth and families in crisis, I’ve sat across from children who flinch at kindness because they don’t recognize it. I’ve worked with teens who are parenting toddlers without ever having been parented themselves. And last year, I lost my own 21-year-old son, Donovan, to suicide. His death shattered my world - and solidified my mission. Early childhood is not just a phase; it’s a foundation. And in too many cases, that foundation is cracked before a child can even speak. My goal is to change that. I want to be an educator who doesn’t just teach numbers and letters, but helps young children build resilience, trust, and confidence in who they are. I want to listen to their words - and the ones they haven’t yet learned to say. I believe in the power of play, routine, and secure attachment. I believe in classrooms that are sensory-aware, culturally responsive, and trauma-informed. I believe in centering emotional development right alongside cognitive growth. Kids are brilliant and hilarious and honest because they haven’t yet learned to hide themselves. My job as an educator is to protect that magic, not dim it. Supporting early childhood development means advocating for children’s needs at every level; from individual classroom care to broader policy reform. It means being present, being curious, and being consistent. I plan to combine my direct work with children with ongoing community engagement, so I can be a bridge between families and the systems that often feel unreachable. This isn’t just a degree for me. It’s a calling rooted in grief, hope, and relentless belief in the power of early intervention. If we want to prevent the downstream crises I see every day - homelessness, substance abuse, generational trauma, suicide - we have to start upstream. That means giving children what they need before their pain becomes pathology. I didn’t grow up planning to be a teacher. I grew into it by witnessing what happens when care comes too late. Now, I want to be part of rewriting that story - starting with our youngest learners. Thank you for your consideration.

If I could create one mandatory class for every K-12 student in America, it would be called "Human First: Mental Health, Resilience, and Connection." This wouldn’t be a health unit squeezed in once a semester or a one-off assembly. It would be a core, recurring curriculum from kindergarten through graduation - evolving with age, deepening with experience, and woven into the very fabric of what we consider a “complete education.” This idea is personal. In September of 2024, my 21-year-old son Donovan died by suicide. He was brilliant, kind, and deeply loved - and still, he lost the fight to stay. The ripple effects of that loss are incalculable. But they’ve clarified something for me: emotional literacy is as essential as reading or math. And yet we treat it like an elective, if we address it at all. Through my work as the Executive Director of a non-profit that supports youth experiencing homelessness, abuse, and family trauma, I see this gap every day. Kids are navigating anxiety, depression, identity, loss, and pressure with little to no structured support. Schools are often their most stable environment, and we’re failing to equip them with the tools they need to survive - let alone thrive. "Human First" would teach students how to name and manage their emotions, how to ask for help, how to recognize distress in others, and how to build connection in a fragmented world. It would normalize therapy. It would cover trauma and recovery. It would explore neurodiversity, belonging, and empathy as skill sets - not soft, but strong. By high school, students would be engaging in peer listening training, self-reflection practices, and community-based mental health advocacy. This class wouldn’t just reduce stigma. It would build capacity. It would create generations of students better equipped to lead, parent, serve, and care - for themselves and for others. Imagine schools where every child has a shared emotional vocabulary, a toolkit for resilience, and a deep sense that they are not alone. That’s the kind of cultural shift this curriculum could spark. I’m pursuing my degree in education because I want to be a part of reimagining the system - one where every student is seen as a whole person, not just a test score. I want to build schools where kids are safe not just physically, but emotionally. Where we don’t wait for crisis before offering care. This class wouldn’t undo every tragedy, but it would save lives. I’m certain of that. Thank you for your consideration.