I recently told my primary care doctor that “I would rather chop off my own arm than have to go back to opioids” and I meant that with every bone in my body. My experience with addiction was atrocious living the greater part 20 years of my life caught up in the horrors of active addiction from ages 16-29; I feel like God has giving me a second chance at life after his grace brought me out of my active addiction to alcohol, weed, heroin, cocaine, methadone, methamphetamines, and benzodiazepines. I have decided to use my experience to help others who may be caught up like I was. My life has changed vastly since getting clean and sober. I am no longer intentionally harming myself or others. I try to be grateful every day I have been given by saying please in the morning and thank-you in the evenings. I have a primary purpose and that is to share my experience, strength, and hope with anyone who I needs it. I have taken a posture of service with my life and my time. I have served my community through feeding the homeless, speaking at community centers, working a helpline, packing at food distribution center for the needy, going into Washtenaw County Jail to share with inmates who need to hear my message of recovery. This has been the last six years and I’m just getting started. I hope to get my Master’s degree in Clinical Psychology and open a recovery program where I live. This community like so many others is in dire need of a facility that incorporates a whole health approach to recovery. Incorporating mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, social, and societal help to those who struggle with alcoholism and addiction I think is the best way to help those sick and suffering. I want to use my education and experience to help lift people into a life of prosperity instead of the horror and dismay that they are stuck in. The biggest misconception about alcoholics and addicts is that they choose to suffer when in reality these disorders have been labeled as diseases for decades; no one wants to live broken, and I want to use an education from the University of Michigan to help restore the broken, diseased, and lost souls that need my help. This scholarship would ensure that I can make my dreams come to fruition without the added stress of a financial burden. Thank-you for your consideration.

I was widowed at the age of 23 when I found my husband overdosed on the kitchen floor in our west side Chicago basement apartment at 1826 Cermack in a place called Mexican town. Having to call his family, tell them that their 27-year-old son was dead was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. I didn’t know how I would pay the bills and continue in college without my best friend and sole provider. I ended up developing acute ptsd symptoms and was hospitalized for two weeks. I leaned on my family for support and eventually moved out on my own again where I enrolled at Grand Valley State University. I knew that my education would be the most important factor if I was going to rise out of poverty and be able to live the type of life that I knew God want it for me. At Grand Valley State University is where I met my next husband. I thought we we so in love and the fact he wanted to spend every second with me I assumed was just a doting fiancé. Through a cycle of power and control he convinced me to move downtown with him and attend a community college instead. Over time he made it clear that I was his possession, and my world began to shrink. He became angry if I wanted to spend time away from him or even look in the direction of another man. After I was completely isolated from my family and friends the cycle of violence began. I dropped out college because he didn’t like me being around other men and I didn’t want people to see the bruises my face. I cried knowing that my education was the last hope of independence I had left. Fast forward out of the tragedy and a decade of bad decisions. I am now divorced and am still chasing my education. I am a junior at the University of Michigan with a 3.76 GPA and and am studying Psychology because I want to help people come out of their addictions and recover from domestic violence. $10,000 would help me pay tuition for my remaining credits, so that I won’t have to take on anymore student debt. It would propel me towards my goal of completing my undergraduate and help me to go on to my master's program where I will become a clinical psychologist. Please help me on my journey so that I may help others who face similar challenges in life. We all face life one day at a time one choice at a time, and your choice to help me with this scholarship will make a big difference for me and for the people I want to help. Thank you for your consideration.

I will overcome all past adversity of being combat veteran, recovering addict, and breast cancer survivor and work in clinical psychology helping people become the best versions of themselves, being the vision of hope for everyone I meet.

Overdose deaths were over 100,000 this year in America. This epidemic has been going on for over the last two decades. Addiction is killing more young people than those who fought 911. It is my mission in life to help combat this epidemic. I serve my community by showing desperate people how to change their life. I chair a service committee that is responsible for providing multiple services for the Western Wayne Community here in Southeast Michigan. We have panel of speakers that go into hospitals and institutions taking a message of recovery into drug treatment facilities in Western Wayne County. We provide services such as hope shots through hospitals and institutions subcommittee that takes the message of recovery into treatment facilities by people who have overcome their own addictions for several years. We also have a subcommittee for a 24 hour helpline where anyone suffering from substance abuse disorder can call for acute substance intervention and find a local 12 step meeting in their area. We also have a subcommittee that reaches out to law enforcement and supplies recovery literature and business cards with our helpline number. In addition this to this we have a subcommittee called Activities that organizes 5-8 functions throughout the year for people in recovery to attend. All of this network is volunteer and donations based. My experience as a solider in Iraq has helped me to learn to work with others when facing a common enemy. And the drug problem in my community, in the entire country, is cunning, baffling, and powerful. If we don’t end the stigma around the disease of addiction, and start providing real resources to Americans things will continue to get worse. For decades America has labeled addiction as a personal failing instead of looking at it as medical, sociological based, economic, and criminal crisis that it is. It’s time those of us who can do something act. The outdated model of locking them up, taking their children, and kicking them to the streets, is obviously not working. I believe we can and must do better! I hope that by being an example of what a person with a 12 year heroin and crack cocaine addiction can accomplish, I will begin to change the hearts and minds of the people who have never been afflicted with this disease. We can and do recover from the disease of addiction. I am proof that we are cable of so much more!

I am not your average college student. I am a 39 year student in Michigan. In 2022 I graduated with my Associates Degree from Wayne County Community College with a 4.0GPA, thanks to Governor Whitmore’s Reconnect Scholarship. It was a big decision for me to go back to school as I hadn’t been in over 10years. But the thought of remaining on disability for the rest of my life with no purpose or prospect of increasing my income seemed hopeless. So I looked realistically at what jobs I could do with my disability and put all my effort into one day being fully self supporting. In April 2022 I was getting ready to take my finals, when I got a message on my healthcare chart that I have breast cancer. This was unexpected and devastating. I didn’t know if I would ever get to finish my degree at the University or even if I’d live to the end of the year! I was forced to take the Summer and Fall 2022 semesters off in order to have surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation. Every time doctors would ask me what I do, I’d respond that I’m a college student. The goal of getting back to chasing my dreams gave me reason to get up and fight everyday. It wasn’t easy but I know I have more to give the world, so I fight! I am now cancer free finishing my last week of radiation and I’m ready to improve my stature in life through my education. I am enrolled as a junior at University of Michigan-Dearborn working on my Bachelors. After my Bachelors I want to get my Masters. The price of college has quadruple since my parents were in college, and I’m having to take out student loans to pay tuition. I’m am worried about how much debt I will accumulate in pursuit of my education. However, I also know that without an education my chances of moving out of low income are next to zero. This scholarship would mean I don’t have to go deeper into debt. This means less stress when I get out of school and have to start paying on my debt. More importantly this scholarship let’s me know that there are people out there who believe in me and who want me to succeed. In cancer treatment having a support system is so important, and this scholarship is the much needed support I could use.

I was use to be a heroin addict. I use to wake everyday in pain and agony. I lived my life one fix to the next and didn’t expect to live past the age of 30. At age 23 I found my husband overdosed on our kitchen floor and I wanted to crawl in the grave next to him. Only 3% of heroin & crack addicts make it to 5 years clean, and today I am in that 3%. Recovery to me is a gift from God. It’s a gift that I am grateful for everyday. It’s a opportunity to do something different. Not many people get to come back from the places I’ve been and I plan on making the most of it. I go to NA meetings weekly. I have a sponsor and work the 12 steps. I am currently sponsoring 4 other women in recovery. ‘Recovery is an active change of your ideas and attitudes’ (Narcotics Anonymous Basic Text). Everyday I get to work on myself, discovering new attributes and overcome my fears with faith. This scholarship will help me become the best the version of myself that God intended me to be: clean, thriving, and empowered.

Maya Angelou once said “I did then what I knew how to do. Now that I know better I do better.” When I was in my twenties I dealt with combat/MST PTSD by using substances, now that know better I am doing better. My goal is to take my life’s experience and service the community. My goal is to finish my bachelor’s degree in psychology at the University of Michigan-Dearborn in 2024. Then go on to their masters program of clinical psychology. I want to practice in the state of Michigan as a limited license clinical psychologist. Plan on accomplishing this goal with persistence, dedication, and perseverance. I am putting myself through college and can use all the financial help I can get. I know that going to graduate school at the age of 40 will be challenging, but this is my second chance at having a life and I’m going to put my everything into striving for my goal!

What recovery means to me. I will never forget what it feels like to not be able to look at yourself in the mirror, because you cannot stand to face what you’ve done to yourself. Recovery has giving me my life back. A life that I can be proud of. It’s given me my soul back. It’s given me my family back. It’s give me my dreams back. Today this precious gift of recovery means the world to me. I have 4 years 2 months and 17 days clean from heroin, crack, and methadone. I work on my recovery every day. I make 12 step meetings, I call people in recovery, I talk to my sponsor, and I sponsor other women in recovery. Being able to share my story with others who struggle to stay clean is one of the greatest gifts of being in recovery. It means so much to me to look at an addict whose struggling to kick opioids and tell them to hold on, you can make it, just don’t give up, if I can do it so can you.

Every struggle is an opportunity to either suffer or learn from. In order to keep a growth mindset I have have to maintain balance emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Instead of life’s trials breaking me, I keep the mindset that I am exactly where I am supposed to be in this moment and that I can get through anything with the strength of my Higher Power. When I face strife in my life I tell myself that feelings aren’t facts, and that all situations are temporary. By changing my perspective I can choose to respond appropriately from an emotionally centered place. I keep my mental health a priority by maintaining a structured schedule, meditating, and exercising. This makes me useful to others, because they get best version of me. Lastly I keep a growth mindset by feeding my spirituality. I make time to connect with nature, I seek guidance through prayer, and attend church services to fill my spirit. I’ve learned you cannot pour from an empty cup. Choosing to stay positive and productive in my life takes work, but the rewards are endless. Having a growth mindset doesn’t mean life becomes perfect. It means that I accept the good and the bad as part of living life. I keep a growth mindset because I know that I’ve made it through every situation up until this point and I’m a better person because of it.