Shooting the Shooter

Thanks Tony. This is my "adopted kid," so to speak as I am her former guardian. She's taught me so much about perserverance which goes to show two really important things: one, resilience has no age limits and two, never give up on a kid. Two years ago she was a student in one of my photography classes who was discovered to be living in a tent in the woods behind her grandmother's house. She arose every morning at 4:30 am to catch a series of buses for her daily 2 1/2 hour ride in (and back) bus ride to school because she knew her only chance (and it was a slim one) to go to college was to get into an accelerated academic program. In spite of or despite all this, she managed to maintain a solid high "B" GPA in the Advanced International Cambridge Exams program passing the required 7 AICE exams (and these are by no means easy exams or classes) which earned her a Bright Futures scholarship. This scholarship pays $102 of the $160 credit hour fee for all her classes until she graduates.

Despite her living conditions, malnutrition, and a host of mental stability challenges she continued to push forward. Long story short, my wife and I took her in to live with us for her senior year in high school and today, a year later she is an Art Major (photography) at Florida State University in Tallahassee, FL. She still faces daily challenges but through a lot of really good friend's assistance, a great psychologist and some super academic advisors, she is making it...you gotta love that kind of grit in a kid; she's just barely 19.