A few years back my mother passed away from Leukemia--it was sudden and stark. This affected me in the most negative way where I had to attend grievance counseling for deep depression. I faced the challenge of trying to keep up my school work, trying to stay social which I didn't want to do, trying to face the day when all I wanted to was just sleep away the pain and never leave bed. In fact, never even wanting to leave the house was a terrible side effect. Depression is a real thing and it's something that is not easily overcome. Just to get good grades was a major hurdle and I couldn't shake the negative vibes. However, my sport of choice is lacrosse and the season was just beginning. I found out when I was practicing or playing my depression didn't affect me so I kept as busy as possible on the field--even practicing when I wasn't supposed to. Busy, busy busy is the trick to getting back into life and when you are busy in the things you love you get better at what you're doing. Let's just say I was a major contributor to the team and we won our league championship. I noticed a lot of tragedy with students' families in the past three years and these kids were in the same position as I was. So, I reached out and told them the trick of getting back on track for life. Kids understand kids better so when I spoke to them---they listened. My words were real to them, my conversation was genuine and the sorrow between us was profound. I became the spiritual leader with my small group of friends and we formed a sort of "all for one and one for all" type of friendship that became stronger than most. Only a month ago Jeremiah's dad died of liver failure. This was also unexpected and Jeremiah kind of just mentally checked out of everything like I did previously a few years back. It's been up to the group to get him back on track and we're all trying to help him out--and he's on the lacrosse team with me. He seems to be doing better now but has a long way to go. I know, I was there but the good news is he's not by himself in dealing with this. I was when it happened to me and it felt like the end of the world. When a kid mentally checks out he doesn't want adults around telling him how to feel or what to do---when you're friends help out it's different somehow, sometimes better. So, that's what we do----we use the power of sports to ease our anguish and we feel good about doing something positive and paying it forward to others if and when the time comes. The Bible says, "we have to walk through the shadow of death" but we don't have to stay there. That walk is a lot easier with true friends next to you every step of the way.

Q: 3. A few years back I was talking to a kid from Kenya at my school. He told me in Africa clean water is a very important commodity. Without clean water, many people die and villages cannot sustain themselves. Children die from parasites and even diarrhea from dehydration from drinking bad infected water. After he told me this and how pervasive it was, I realized such a simple thing like clean water we take for granted over here. He inspired me and I decided to volunteer and help raise money for an organization called "Wells of Life" that builds wells in Uganda that also filters and cleans the water. With clean water, kids can sustain their schools and get an education, villages can sustain themselves without leaving in search for a new place to live, children don’t have to trek countless miles to carry “jerry cans” back to their homes and are safer from being kidnapped and sold into trafficking—clean water is the key for everything in Uganda and Kenya! The entire organization raised over $200,000--that success made the inspiration infectious! Q: 2. This was great because what we did affected and improved the lives for many instead of one! Did you know there is a world-wide drought going on? Did you know that most children will never get and education in those parts of Africa if water doesn’t sustain their schools and villages? Did you know one clean water well built by “Wells of Life” can sustain one village of over $1,000 people? I’m only a kid in high school and there’s not much I can do by myself but I can join a movement with others in doing something powerful for many, because every volunteer makes a difference. I found out that inspiration comes from, “action!” Action from now on is my platform in finding inspiration. My inspiration was derived from my friend and my action to do something will be the inspiration for someone else! Q: 3. Now, that I am finally seventeen years old I can get my first job. I am hoping to donate 10% of my paycheck to Wells of Life and I’ve calculated that over the years if I donate $12.00 every two weeks so by the time I graduate from high school I can conceivably donate over $600.00. Six hundred dollars can repair a single well and provide sustainability for a village of over a thousand people which could have hundreds of kids! We only have so many minutes on this planet—let’s make the most out of our lives. The inspiration of not doing things alone but by being part of something bigger than myself is awesome. As a result, I have chosen to go in the medical field to become a physician someday. I want help people get better from sickness and eventually I want to find the cure for a certain type of cancer called Leukemia which viciously runs in my family. I want to save little kids from having to go through what I went through when my mother died from Leukemia or kids dying from polluted water. I'm going to use this money for my tuition and tell everyone what my goals are. Yes, diseases often take peoples lives but when mankind helps each other then we can finally save them instead.

The two hardest challenges while being a student athlete is finding time to fit in my academic demands and coming up with the money to stay in sports. First, being a top athlete as well as maintaining a 4.0 GPA is extremely difficult. Both the classroom and the field requires perfecting time management and keeping a regimen that works to maintain the levels of achievement. However, also finding a way to pay for all the extra fees is also hard--the equipment and fees quickly add up to exorbitant amounts which my father does not have the money for at all. I rely on scholarships to make up the difference and so far we've been able to just skate by. One year, I fudged and didn't buy new pads and my old ones were worn thin and I suffered a bad injury. It took me a bit of time to recover (half a year) but I am okay now. I really don't want to go through that again. As a result, I want to have good equipment and not have to worry about paying for the extra fees for sports. I want a year just to know that everything is paid for and I don't have any financial worries. I go to a private school on full scholarship but that scholarship only covers tuition because we are very low income but not anything extra, not even lab fees or the fees for duel credit . I want to become a sports doctor and play football and lacrosse in college like I do now but everything depends on finances. I also learned by being an athlete is team work. In other words, you can be the best quarterback in the entire world but if you are not aligned as a team you can't win a single game. For example, if you look at a clock it has all these dials, springs and mechanisms for it to work down to the second. If just one part of all the mechanisms inside a clock isn't working, then the whole clock is worthless not being able to keep time. Teams are like that because the timing, the strength and coordination and all the players have to jive perfectly in unison to master the plays. Even if you don't like someone personally--you have to be dedicated to your job on the team to execute your part perfectly. I learned that on a team there are all kinds of opinions, views and ideas how to go about things and your own opinion may not be in the majority. The only way to find out if a team has made the right decisions is to try them out and let the strategy prove itself true. The last thing I've learned is never, ever rest on your laurels as the opposition is biting at your heals to beat you the very next year: Start off strong and end strong--there's no in between.

My mother passed away when I was very little-- in addition at that same time my father lost his job and the insurance companies refused to pay out over technicalities. We lost our home and our life savings were stolen by unscrupulous relatives: This was our lowest time. In addition, my father became sick and I as a kid in middle school took care of him in the darkest of moments. As a result, we lived a bare minimum existence. Only rent, food and bills were paid for if we could. No vacations, no celebrations of any holidays, no sports or clubs, no new clothes or amenities not even a celebration of a birthday. My father said that as long as we have each other and give ourselves time to regroup we can accomplish anything! The one thing that I have learned is that the best thing in the world is, volunteering. Volunteering doesn't cost money, just your time and effort and it makes a person feel good like nothing else. That is what I do through church--volunteer for other people who need help. Especially for little kids who are going through some tough times like we did and are still. I have vowed to become a physician to help others in my career and I have promised my father I would get a 4.0 in school and I have! It has been very hard but I discovered a mighty perseverance deep within me brought out by our misfortune. My father's right--we will be resurrected to accomplish our goals and nothing will stop us. I need this scholarship to buy a new laptop I sorely need because my old one broke--I will find a way to do it because it is important to accomplish my school work. Thank you.

Many of my relatives including my mother who was receiving treatment for cancer died from the medical treatment and not actually from the disease that affected her. This left me bitter and bewildered about what supposedly medical professionals know about treating patients. In addition, I discovered there are special interests that affect the policy in treating patients such as the pharmaceutical industry--which may or may not have the best interest of the patient in mind. I also found out for things to be approved by the FDA, it just has to show that it doesn't have negative affects and but is not necessarily effective at the actual healing. However, contrary to that there are still plenty of medicines that can have lethal affects to a person's body---such as damaging liver which can kill you. Furthermore, I discovered that many congressional elected officials have made lots of money voting in favor for certain businesses with an interest to market new products to the American public---they do this by getting insider information on stocks which the elected officials buy into before going public because they are in contact with their lobbyists. Nancy Pelosi is one example with TEVA pharmaceuticals---yet insider trading is illegal for ordinary citizens because of the conflict of interest argument! After my mother died, I took a good hard long look at our system of medical delivery in this country and I vowed to become a physician someday not to help enhance the system but to FIX it. I will be a doctor that will be cautious about radical treatments that automatically turn to procedures and dangerous experimental medicine that can cause more harm than good. The answer is to educate people that there are alternatives such as natural healing. I'm going to change the present system from the inside out. I am someday going to be a board certified physician who's actually going to promote the natural healing alternatives--to let people know that there are alternatives to radical, drastic medicinal treatments. My father once had to deal with police brutality from working as a person inside the city--instead of fighting the problem from the outside he joined in fighting the problem from inside the city which was much more effective with new policies and training. Why can't we educate the public someday to do the same thing? Presently, when you see the doctor they give you a treatment plan and it always almost one sided. That is, the plan said there was no other alternative to the situation. Why can't we pass a law to say for some peoples alternative there are natural healing solutions as well with their original treatment plan? It's going to take a lot of people in the future medical field like me to give efficacy to holistic health which has been around actually for thousands of years. Let's give homage to what often as been tried and true by the practices of natural healing. We have everything to gain and nothing to to lose by it.

I lost my mother Julie when I was ten years old to Leukemia (cancer of the blood). My mother was beautiful, and was known as a wonderful saint who was always busy helping senior citizens and doing charity work at church. When she passed I was confused, depressed and very lost. My father said we “can never give up living the life that we were meant to live.” Mom was the literal beacon of this saying--even though she suffered worse day by day she never gave up helping, never gave up lifting us up and was the Rock of Gibraltar till the day she left us. Sadly, when my mother was only seven years old her very own mother passed away from Leukemia as well and I found out it runs in the family. I was so depressed that if a lightning bolt struck me, I wouldn’t care. Eventually I realized through mom that I did matter and could go on to do great things in her memory and that she would really admire that. It dawned on me too that I could become a physician and find the cure for Leukemia. I also realized I am happiest in life when I feel like I can help others. I discovered when others are grateful from your help you can feel that rush of emotion pour onto you. It is a touching of souls that happens that's supernatural; dad calls it the holy spirit working but whatever it is --it's pure good and it makes me feel good about myself too. Unfortunately, this disease keeps haunting us with cousins and aunts getting sick and never seems to leave the shadow of my extended family. This experience has shaped my life of staying strong and finally getting determined to do something about it! I'm going to become a physician and find the cure for Leukemia!! At the very least, I want to make advancements in medicine to ease the pain and treatment for people suffering Leukemia. I discovered that the treatment is just as bad as the disease and often kills those trying to defeat it. My mother was in terrible pain and seeing her suffer seemingly affected part of me forever as well. As I previously mentioned, my mother was a fighter and an inspiration to never give up no matter what. How could I ever live a life from any other example other than the one she exemplified for me? How?! My mother’s spirit in the afterlife seemingly reached out to me and said, “No more sadness—now move!” What happened in my family was beyond our control, it was beyond her control and what happened is not her fault nor anyone else's: I finally understood that. Life is often unfair but it is always good---God make's sure if we suffer temporarily here on earth it's just that--temporary. We are people of faith and we have answers and deliverance and a bona fide promise from heaven for our ultimate redemption. When I get older, I am practicing my healing profession and to positively think of my mom every time I help someone get well. I honestly can't think of doing anything that is more noble than making the sick well and giving hope to families at the same time. We are their legacies and I take great comfort knowing that their really not gone---they're just not here. Like I said, my mom was a beautiful person and her resting place says: "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." Mathew 5:8.

One challenge I have faced in my pursuit of STEM is that advanced science and math are not my best subjects—in fact, they are a challenge. I do okay with STEM but it gets harder every year as the classes become more advanced and I need more study time and help to make the grade. This is my junior year in high school, but next year I have advanced organic chemistry. I want to be a chemistry major because I want to be a medical researcher to find the cure for Leukemia which my mother died from. I’m not taking the easiest road but I am taking a road that will be highly rewarding later on. One has to be disciplined in their studies to be successful, especially in high school where there are all kinds of distractions. I have more distractions than most as my family (my father and I) are very financially challenged so we don’t have the money for the tutors, or extra study guides that other kids can afford to utilize and buy those things at my school. The teachers have a lot of work and a lot of students so they cannot dedicate extra time to help out just one student either; me. Therefore, as a result I have found ways to get the extra help I need in order to pass my courses with decent grades: The internet. With chemistry, it is very detailed and if the formula answers are not accurate everything is therefore incorrect. This is really important because in real life if you have a job and your analysis is wrong then you could be putting someone’s life in jeopardy or a company in great legal trouble. I discovered if I type in certain areas of study regarding chemistry in the search engine, I often come up with several explanations with REAL LIFE chemistry examples (videos) of what I’m supposed to be doing. These explanations make a huge difference in me understanding of what I’m supposed to be learning. Even better, I have also discovered that if you know someone who is a real-life chemist like I met at church then they are usually more than friendly in answering any hard questions you might have regarding your homework. You can’t actually ask other students because they are usually just as confused as you are! In one example for instance, I was having a real hard time working on a project and couldn’t find anything on the internet to explain my dilemma—I was HIGHLY flustered. My dad suggested that I call a company out of the blue and talk to a real-life scientist! It was so unconventional that I very much hesitated to do so. However, I realized I wasn’t getting anywhere on my own and I really needed to finish the extra credit project to raise my grade. I finally got a hold a gentleman at Scott’s Miracle Grow Company who had a PhD in advanced chemistry, Dr. Donselman and he was very enthusiastic to help and explain to me what I was doing wrong and why my answers were wrong. Once I listened to him with his explanations, I understood perfectly what I had to do to in order to finish the project. After that, everything became very easy to understand and actually became fun to work on too! My Advice in recommending future students in navigating their academic work is to think outside the box and find a way for new resources to help you along the way. Since our household cannot afford professional tutors or the extra study guides, I have become resourceful in the help I need to get through school---this also includes navigating the world of scholarships that I very much need to acquire to scrape up a solid education. It hasn’t been easy, my mother died of Leukemia a few years ago and unscrupulous step relatives absconded with our life savings—as a result we lost everything, are on assistance and we are still trying to make it back to normal. Whatever that might look like. I seriously need a new laptop so I can throw away my old, crummy broken one. Tools like a good working laptop makes a big difference in helping you succeed at school as well. I very much hope you choose me, thank you. Tyler

My mother passed away from Leukemia (blood cancer), a few years back when I was ten years old. I was confused, depressed and lost. My father said we could never give up living life that we were meant to live not only for ourselves but for mom too. My mother was the literal beacon of this belief --even though she suffered worse day by day she never gave up helping, never gave up lifting us up in our sadness and was the Rock of Gibraltar till the day she passed. My sadness was so pervasive that I felt like never waking up again after I went to sleep--in fact I used to pray for that. However, I had a realization that I could become a medical researcher someday and find the cure for this blood cancer. I also realized I am the happiest in life when I feel like I can help other people instead---when others are grateful from that help you can feel that rush of emotion pour onto you spirit. It is a connection of souls that happens in pure goodness; dad calls it the holy spirit working but whatever it is --it's pure good. If, at least I could look into the desperate eyes from someone who's dying from Leukemia or their family member and put my hand on their shoulder and say "it's actually going to be okay--you're going to be okay" and mean it because I know it to be true then I will have fulfilled my true calling on this earth. When my mother was slowly wasting away there was no one who could do that for me as a child regarding her. No one was able to say everything was actually going to be, okay." No one. I was left standing in a room by myself staring at my mother and told to say goodbye to her. A hurtful memory that will never, ever fade away from myself as long as I live. I have never known and probably will never know again such a terrible sadness that lingers with oneself like a great weight pressed down on your heart. If I can just give someone hope and prevent that from happening to another human being, especially little kids then I will be happy in life. Someday, my work as the next generation of medical scientists will do away with Leukemia. Imagine all the smiles throughout the world as the announcement is made that we have found a cure! Imagine all the affected millions of people who were waiting for a miracle to actually have their prayers answered. I want to be part of that catalyst to make it happen someday! Even the treatment of cancer needs to be improved as well as finding the cure--so many suffer from the harsh treatment such as chemotherapy which is sometimes just as bad, as that is what happened to my mother. I just HAVE TO be part of the solution--this disease has killed many people in my family. No one knows what causes it but they know it runs in families and even myself could be susceptible to it in later years to come! I sometimes imagine being a medical doctor racing to find the cure as I battle the disease myself when I'm older! If I die someday because of it--it will be well worth it if my contributions contribute to its eventual cure. This essay is basically a prayer for the future, thank you.

I lost my mother when I was ten years old to Leukemia. My mother was beautiful, she was known as a beautiful saint who was always busy helping senior citizens and charity work at church. When she passed I was confused, depressed and lost. My father said we can never give up in living the life that we were meant to live. However, my mother was the literal beacon of this saying--even though she suffered worse day by day she never gave up helping, never gave up lifting us up in our sadness for her and was the rock of Gibraltar till the day she passed. Unfortunately, when my mother was only seven years old her own mother passed away from Leukemia as well. When mom died, I was so depressed that I felt like ending it all---who knows if I'd ever act on it but that's how I felt. I eventually realized through mom that I could be valuable and go on to do great things in her memory for the world because she would really like that. I had a realization that I could become a physician and find the cure for blood cancer (Leukemia). I also realized I am the happiest in life when I feel like I can help other people---when others are grateful from that help you can feel that rush of emotion pour onto you. It is a touching of souls that happens that's supernatural; dad calls it the holy spirit working but whatever it is --it's pure good. This double traumatic experience in our family life keeps returning. This disease keeps haunting us with cousins and aunts getting sick and never seems to leave the shadow of my family. This experience has shaped my life of finally managing my sadness and finally getting angry and then determined to do something about it. I'm going to become a physician and find the cure for Leukemia! At the very least, I want to make advancements in medicine to ease the pain and treatment for people suffering Leukemia--I discovered that the treatment is just as bad as the disease and often kills those trying to defeat it. My mother was in terrible pain and seeing her suffer seemingly affected part of me forever as well. As I previously mentioned, my mother was a fighter and an inspiration to never give up no mater what. How could I ever live a life from any other example other than the one she exemplified for me? What happened in my family was beyond our control--it was beyond her control and what happened is not her fault or anyone else's. I have to understand and tell myself that. Life is often unfair but it is always good---God make's sure if we suffer temporary here on earth it's just that--temporary. We are people of faith and we have answers and deliverance and a bona fide promise from heaven for our redemption. When I get older and I am practicing my healing profession I'm going to positively think of my mom every time I can possibly wipe away a tear from someone's life helping them get well. I honestly can't think of doing anything that is more worthy and noble in making the sick better and giving hope to families at the same time. We are their legacy and I take great comfort knowing that their really not gone---they're just not here. Like I said, my mom was a beautiful person and her resting place says: "Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God." Mathew 5:8. Love you, mom.

My mother died a few years back from Leukemia. I was ten years old. Being regular church folks there are times when the world puts your faith to the test. In addition, when my father went to the bank, unscrupulous step relatives emptied out our life's savings. So, my mother passed and we had no money to bury her or pay the rent. Then, covid came and my father lost his job. Our whole world just turned upside down in a very short period of time; seemingly overnight I had never before seen my father so distraught. Dad said, "the test of faith can be an awesome burden at times." The Catholics say faith is a "mystery"-- because it is the easiest thing to have at times and the hardest thing to have at different times. When this happened, I became familiar with the story of "Job." My father had to use money that he saved away for my education for us to survive--it killed him inside to do it. In addition, my grandfather wanted to leave me funds for my education but that was also stolen from the same step relatives..they are not people of faith. When this was going on something that was said to my father stuck with me: "God, wants to see how you're going to react" is what that friend told dad. I realized, when you have nothing left then all you have IS God--just like Job. For us, that book was our emotional example to survive and surviving we've been. I love that Nabi loved to preach---I know the type of beautiful person she must have been because that's my father as well. He's a Gideons Chaplain and is also a ordained deacon in the Presbyterian church. However, also exemplified in Job is that God blessed him twice fold in the end---but God wanted him to keep his faith so he COULD bless him. God, did not want Job to suffer but used his story for the world in the ages to come. In the moment, it was not an easy thing to do when your back is against the wall and the devil seemingly has you by the throat, especially when someone you love leaves this earth way too early. Furthermore, in Job that day my father read out loud this sentence: "The Lord Giveth and the Lord taketh away--blessed be the name of the Lord." We were just in silence. We surmised that life is not fair but through God it's always good no matter the circumstance. God is the great equalizer when it comes to the world doing us bad. It made us realize that heaven is a real place and that Christ is real, and that my mother's passing and hurt are just something of the worldly past and temporary. This helped us. Those relatives who don't like my father because he is Hispanic and took our savings don't realize that they are NOT better than us--they're just lost. In addition, even though they were related to my mother's side of the family through an additional marriage they have never visited her resting place--but we go visit mom every Sunday. I realized the Bible is not only a history book--it is also a supernatural healing book for the soul and the church is a MASH unit: A Mobile Army Spiritual Hospital. We attend church to get triage from all the hurt we suffer out in the real world during the week. Someday, I'm going to be a doctor and I am going to do miracles in His name, amen.

My mother passed away from Leukemia a few years back--I was only ten years old. I was confused, depressed and lost. My father said we can never give up in living the life that we were meant to live. However, my mother was the literal beacon of this saying--even though she suffered worse day by day she never gave up helping, never gave up lifting us up in our sadness and was the rock of Gibraltar till the day she gave up the ghost. When she died, I was so depressed that I felt like ending it all---who knows if I'd ever act on it but that's how I felt. I realized through mom that I could be great and go on to do great things in her memory for humanity. I had a realization that I could become a physician and find the cure for blood cancer (Leukemia). I also realized I am the happiest in life when I feel like I can help other people---when others are grateful from that help you can feel that rush of emotion pour onto you. It is a touching of souls that happens that's supernatural in pure goodness; dad calls it the holy spirit working but whatever it is --it's pure good. If, for at least one time--one time in my life I could look into the vanquished eyes from someone who's dying from Leukemia or their family and put my hand on their shoulder and say "it's actually going to be okay--you're going to be okay" and mean it because I know it to be true then I will have fulfilled my mortal purpose on this earth. When my mother was slowly wasting away there was no one who could do that for me as a child regarding mom. No one was able to say everything was actually going to be, okay." No one. I was left standing in a room by myself staring at my mother and told to say goodbye to her. A hurtful memory that will never, ever fade away from myself as long as I live. I have never known and probably will never know again such an awesome sadness that lingers with oneself like a great weight pressed down on your heart. If I can just give someone hope and prevent that from happening to another human being, especially little kids then I will be so happy and fulfilled in life. Best yet. My work as the next generation of medical scientists to do away with Leukemia can either be the cure or the stepping stone to the cure from this dreadful disease. Imagine all the smiles throughout the world as the announcement is made that we have found the answer! Imagine all the affect millions of people who were waiting for a miracle to actually have their prayers answered, I want to be part of the catalyst to make that happen! Even the treatment of cancer needs to be improved as well as the cure--so many suffer from the treatment which is sometimes seemingly worse, as that is what happened to my mother. I just HAVE TO be part of the solution--this disease has killed many people in my family. No one knows what causes it but they know it runs in families and even myself could be susceptible to it in later years. I sometimes imagine being a medical doctor racing to find the cure as I battle the disease myself when older! If I die someday because of it--it will be well worth it if my contributions eventually contribute to its cure. Amen.

My mother is the granddaughter of immigrants--my father is Latino. My family is very economically challenged but I go to a private high school. I was ten years old when my mother died, she had cancer. When this happened, relatives appeared to have our family's interest in mind but in the end emptied out my family's life savings and because of this, things have been very hard for us. My father and my mother while she was alive no matter what always wanted me to have a good education. With that in mind they wanted me to use my education to be the most fulfilled and successful person I could totally be. I have learned to write requests for scholarships--with the few that I get I am somehow able each year to squeak by getting my tuition paid for. It's still very hard as our part to contribute is almost too much as well. I go to a school where my scholarships depend on my academic GPA--if I don't have a 3.6 minimum then I don't get the scholarships. The stress of knowing that in school gives me high anxiety and constant worry all the time. My school is full of wealthy families and other kids don't have that worry and can participate in all kinds of extra curricular activities and I sometimes can't. For example, they can be extra sports fees, or field trips that I just can't because they are cost prohibitive. In private schools there are fees for everything. Even now, my computer screen is cracked and I can't fix it. Having my parents' experience of hard work, and perseverance has affective me that I am becoming adept at finding ways and means of accomplishing my educational goals. My father's saying is, "find a way to make it happen." As a result that's what we're doing. There is no way I could attend my current school without scholarships, but our perseverance in finding them is constant. Therefore, we never give up! I want to become a doctor and find the cure for Leukemia which is a blood cancer and it runs in the family. There's a chance someday that I might even contract it! My mother died of this and so did my grandmother. It is a slow encompassing type of cancer that kills you slowly each day then rapidly speeds up to overtake your body. It was awful to see this happen to my once beautiful mother waste away in her hospitable room. Shortly afterwards, that's when I felt determined to do something highly important with my life and curing cancer is going to be my life long commitment. My mother didn't give up in her battle until she passed away and my father with that hot Latino blood in him refuses to give up on my education efforts even though our money has disappeared. In fact, he's on the phone once a week with scholarship committees inquiring about opportunities for me. He finds them and I write the essays for them. Together, my father and I are a good team. If I win this scholarship, I am going to fix my computer's cracked screen. Perseverance, finding a way to "make things happen" and honoring my parents by doing something great to help others is the best way I can think of loving my mother way down here on earth. Deep in my mother's heart I know someday she will be very proud of me for accomplishing all my goals and it will put a big smile on her face in heaven.

My dream is to make the greatest impact! I want to find the cure for Leukemia as it runs in my family. Leukemia is blood cancer and it is the worst thing you can witness happen to someone---it kills slowly and steadily as you watch your loved ones die even more each day. My grandmother and aunts died from Leukemia and so did my mother when I was ten years old. In passing away, my mother said to me to follow my ambition but make sure it adds to the welfare of all and has a positive impact on everyone. In order to do this, I want to attend medical school but my family is severely strained. When we lost mom, our life savings were emptied out by unscrupulous family but we were still left with all the medical bills. I want to find the cure for Leukemia and save the lives of innocent people this terrible disease has claimed and I want to revamp the medical industry on not only how it treats families medically--but financially as well, so what we're going through doesn't happen to more Americans. Out of all the diseases--losing hope in your life's dreams is the worst! Without the hope to contribute inventions don't get invented, cures don't get discovered, and miracles don't happen. I want to be like Mr. Young---I want to be inspired by men like him and I want to be an inspiration to others like him. A movie called "October Sky” reminds me of Mr. Young. It is one of my all-time favorites. If a kid like me can harness enough hope out of the dire circumstances of my family's tragedy and overcome our financial challenges to do so then everything is still possible. However, it's going to take tenacity and brute determination to make it happen. We lost everything when my mother died---but I learned to write for scholarships and I have a pocket full of hopes that I will get some scholarships to forge on with for my career dreams. I'm going to shoot for the stars because if I do that I will at least land on the moon. If I can at least do that----then I can hand off the torch of inspiration to others at the same time so that my work may continue in the fight for defeating Leukemia. Rome was not built in a day---so Leukemia may not be cured within the generation but the beginning of its downfall may start with me. I have a 4.0 and attend a competitive school from scholarships otherwise I would not be there. I want to make a difference in my life and I mostly want to help others. Helping others is a currency that you can't really put a price on. The reward is seeing someone who may have thought their problems were unconquerable but sometimes miracles do happen---to be part of that miracle process is a miracle in itself, and that's a highly fulfilled life.

Success means for the first time in my family's history upon generations that we will be able to achieve the American dream. In the past we came close, but due to unscrupulous people who took advantage of our hard working family our savings were taken away from us. Sometimes, when you are new immigrants and when you don't know the law of the land other people take advantage of you and that's what happened to us. My father told me he always wanted me to have an education, to have the advantages that he never had and to find a vocation that no one could steal from you. I guess you could say my family has old world American values of studying hard, bettering yourself and working diligently to achieve your dreams. However, no one told us about how some people take advantage of others and how people are either honest or dishonest. That is something that we have finally learned. Success means having a permanent roof over our heads, having an education and vocation to contribute to society--to finally being part of the American fabric of success in the pursuit of realizing our happiness. This scholarship will help me achieve my goals because I go to a private high school that we currently cannot afford but somehow have been able to just squeak by because of scholarships every year. If I don't get enough scholarships for this next year I will have to bow out of a school that I have been attending for six years but this next year will be my final year but mot expensive year. With these private schools--the tuition keeps going up yearly and my father is tapped out. My ultimate goal is to be a doctor--trying to find the cure for Leukemia which my mother died of when I was only ten years old. This disease (cancer of the blood) runs in my family and my grandmother died from it as well as other cousins and uncles. I want to find the cure for Leukemia because I can do something not only for my family but for the entire world as well. I don't need to be famous, I don't need accolades but if I can change the lives of people for generations so other children don't need to see their mothers dying in front of them and worry if they will ever succumb to this illness as they get older then that is all the satisfaction I will ever need. I'm going to scrape up the best education I can possibly achieve by trying to graduate from my high school, by getting into college and then finishing medical school. I know these are lofty dreams for someone descendent of immigrants but I firmly believe everyone has a destiny and our job is to manifest that destiny not only for ourselves but for the greater good of humanity. I'm taking this academic journey step by step and need every little bit of help that I can get. If every success and scholarship is like a drop of water, then someday I hope to have enough scholarships to represent a bucket of water that I can use to pay back society. To finally be a doctor someday, to finally find the cure for Leukemia and to finally treat the most desperate in need cost free and never worry about my family's needs ever again. This is my prayer, my hope and dream in my future life.

When I was ten years old my mother passed away from cancer, then covid came and my father lost his job so suddenly we went from a double income to no income and lots of bills from the hospital regarding mom. It was a terrible time. We lost our home and unscrupulous relatives during my mother’s death interjected themselves in our affairs and we in addition lost our life’s savings thanks to them. People who tried giving us advice only made things worse or just had useless lip service. Many of the people whom we thought were our friends were not because they thought cancer was contagious and they were afraid---we never heard from them again, ever. Especiall, from the relatives who absconded with our family’s money. So, it seemed like it was my father and I against the world. We lost everything---but losing mom was the worst. Friends failed us, family failed us, work failed us, the hospital failed us, the economy and the whole world failed us! I even thought God failed us. However, because of our low income—being on welfare, I was eligible for more scholarships from my school. Without those scholarships I would not have been able to attend. The school is a Christian school and so they really stepped in to help. In addition, our new church gave a scholarship to the family too which helped with some bills and education. A friend of my church who is an attorney advised us on how to reconfigure our finances and how to appeal the bills from the hospital, that turned out to be a HUGE blessing in the end. My father suffers from age discrimination in the work place so it’s hard for him to find a new job but he managed at least to find several part-time positions. Unfortunately, there is are no benefits to contract or part time work so we have to be careful of not getting sick. Of all the places in the world it is very hard to find housing where we live. However again, a neighbor from church knows the owner of a tiny house recommended that we get it a little under market. We were so ecstatic to get it because we were going to head over to a shelter. I realized some things: (1) seeing my father broken in spirit hurt me just as bad as seeing my mother pass away at the hospital and (2) keeping our faith no matter what can see us through. Our whole experience reminded me of a movie called, “The Pursuit of Happyness” with Will Smith because it seemed to be about a story of us! Anyway, I learned that all the material things don’t really matter compared to health and family because with that in intact you’re still not knocked out for the count—God, still has us and He’s always saying: “Tyler, you got some tough punches thrown your way and it hurts—but get back up! Fight on!” My advice to kids my age or even adults is about “never giving up.” We’re not only fighting for our lives in the world but can serve to be the example for others who’ve been knocked down. The human spirit is resilient but if we lean and help each other at least just a little, then we can bounce back. That’s how miracles happen with God between us all. My father says no man is an island—he was right. Someday, I want to help others with sheer determination to do good for them too. Someday.

A movie that has had a great impact on me has been, “The Patriot.” Americans fought for everything that would enable them to be a free and sovereign country. They rolled the dice for war against England whom looked upon us as secondary citizens and at every turn abused our rights as supposed represented Englishman. They understood the big picture clearly—they would never be whom they were suppose to be while under the yoke of British subjugation. The patriots risked everything: Property, livelihoods, life and limb and the very lives of their families as well. If they lost, they would be erased from the annals of history. The pursuit of happiness was at stake in perpetuity for the generations to come forever. The Americans were outnumbered, they were going up against the best army in the world, they had no navy and yet the British had the largest fleet, and all the treasury back in parliament to back up the British military and we had none and was a veritable suicide mission. Washington’s first task at the beginning of the war was to defend New York—the whole Continental Army only had 121 cannons while the British war ships had thousands and would be pulling up to New York harbor soon on July 2nd, 1776. What were we thinking! Did we lose our colonial minds! To die and languish in a British prison ship with rats or to be hanged in public in disgrace seemed to be the fate for everyone involved. Why did the colonials choose to fight? Were they somehow assured, they would even win a war against the King of England? No. The colonists didn’t fight because they were assured of victory but fought because they had a cause! A God given right for men to choose their own destiny and to protect their families and to exercise the actual pursuit of happiness was a belief that we took to be ordained by God. If the Almighty gave us free will—then why did despots feel they could usurp it? We did not cower in the face of the opposition, in fact just a few days later with that cause we declared our independence on the 4th of July in 1776. With the odds stacked against us, with the ferocious onslaught of the British cannon and troops pummeling ordinary citizens who were bookkeepers, tavern keepers, brewers, candlemakers, barrel makers and such we stood our ground as much as we could before we left to fight another day. Many died not for the idea we could win the war, but for an appeal to heaven for a free and independent America which never existed before. The Gadsen flag chose the snake to represent our resolve, because the snake: Never closes its eyes and is forever vigilant, it doesn’t attack unless provoked and is always in a defensive position and the parts of the thirteen original colonies make up the whole. Friends, education was always part of this original war—to prosper oneself fits into this notion of “the pursuit of happiness” and fits into a community and contribute to its prosperity is part of the reason why we fought for this great cause. To manifest that cause without the sickness of Europe’s corruption holding us down goes against what providence has ordained for us. The cause is our freedom to just be able to have the opportunity to live the way we want. The hope for it. The Spirit of 1776 is alive and well today—so long as the Constitution continues to survive. God Bless America.

I am going to write my essay as a letter to Cat. Dear Cat, I am someone else who has experienced sadness in my family. When I was ten years old my mother was diagnosed with Leukemia and upon finding that out she died quickly within a year back in 2018 on Labor Day. A year later, my only grandparent (known as Baba) died and I didn't even know it at the time because the step relatives held that information from me and wouldn't let me talk to him while he was alive in the hospital, they never told me he died. They just sent me a memorial invite after he died--when I showed up with my father and I wasn't even allowed to talk. In addition, those step relatives emptied our entire life savings--money that was supposed to go to my education from my grandfather and parents. My father lost his job as he was trying to keep us afloat during this time. We lost everything. So, now it's my father and I seemingly against the whole world. Having said this I am taking a deep breath right now-----it's hard to even mention. Now, here I am at 16 years old. I attend a private high school but it's costly. My father is barely able to keep me in. He does it mostly from scholarships but those scholarships are not guaranteed every year and they get smaller and smaller each year as well. My father, stated to me that the best chance of success in my education is my head start. My school is the best in the area and I am gifted--nevertheless, if you don't have the money--out you go. Cat, I want to find the cure for Leukemia (cancer of the blood). It's a disease that runs in my mother's side of the family---my grandmother I never knew, died of it before I was born as well which means mom was only seven when her mother died. This tragedy seems to repeat itself over the generations but my father is like you! The tougher things get the more determined my father gets to sustain us and fight to survive. Reading your biography it seems you both have the same personality. In the future, I want to attend medical school and I want to solve the cure for leukemia but my best shot at it is being able to stay in the school that I attend now. In my school, I am challenged but receive the best peer, education and teacher support possible. I have been attending my school since middle school and it has been a miracle for me. Right now, I am at my most desperate financial challenge. I only have two more years until graduation and if I graduate from my high school with my current 4.0 GPA then scholarship possibilities later on will be better for me. So actually, this is the most critical stage for me in my education--these two last years of high school. If I can stay in this school for just two more years, keep my 4.0 GPA I will be more eligible for much more academic financial aid in the future. Furthermore I recently discovered many cousins have also had this disease---I am going to change the world when I open up my research facility and cure Leukemia so no little kid like me will ever have to go through what I had to. Forebodingly, I sometimes wonder if I will get Leukemia in the future. Being able to pay back to the world any help that I receive while younger will be a huge pay-it-forward with me. My research facility will also be adjacent to a hospital and shelter for those families who need to be close to the hospital free of charge. I have great plans to save the world from Leukemia and great plans to wipe aways the tears for families with Leukemia. I hope I don't let myself or God down. Tyler

When I was ten years old---my mother died of Leukemia. The family used all their finances and resources to try and keep her alive. I was very angry and bitter for my mother's loss and quite honestly still have much of that with me. It's going to take a lifetime to try and manage my sadness from my mother's loss. During the process, my father couldn't travel for work anymore as he had to be at the hospital all the time in trying to keep her alive. Then covid came and he couldn't get his job back or any job back as the new recession hit us hard. We lost everything--except our will to survive. My father is tough, he knows what it's like to go without. He attended Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles and understands what it's like to to grow up without resources--so do I. To make things more stark, our step family stole our family's life savings and so we everything in addition to that. That is a hurtful memory that I don't want to go into detail with. We found out that when someone dies---not everyone is your friend--even family. So, it's basically my father and I against the world trying to survive. Everywhere we turn there seems to be a new compounding dilemma on financial resources and as a resort we are on public assistance. A school counselor told us the best chance for me to attend college is to get the best primary education possible. That the competition for university is fierce and is going to be very difficult. I attend a private high school because of the scholarships I get--but even with scholarships our portion to come up with is still enormous for us. I don't know if I'm go to stay in my school every year and have a terrible anxiety and worry that I will be pulled out of class in the middle of the school because of not being able to pay for the tuition. It's a terrible way to attend school with that dark cloud and thought hanging over your head every day. I want to become a doctor and find the cure for Leukemia as this cancer of the blood runs in my family and economically ruins us through the generations trapping us in bankruptcy and poverty. If I can make it to medical school then I have a chance of overcoming what happened to us and can make a difference in helping to save others, as well, especially little kids with Leukemia. In fact, I am determined to find that cure at all costs. I want to be able to found and build a medical research center that does this. My mother, grandmother and cousins all died from this. My father never thought he would become a single parent and was depressed that I would not grow up with my mom. Most of all, my mother passing in the hospital was most sad about knowing that she wouldn't see me grow up--for a ten year old that hits pretty hard. This scholarship is so important to me---that if I can just make it in my school for two more years and graduate it will be a miracle! I have a 3.9-4.0 GPA. I have worked extremely hard to get this far despite my diagnosed depression, having to struggle and not let that affect me in my studies. So, your $1000 is like a million dollars to me because that will make the difference in me attending my current school. Thank you, for the hope.

College means a way to fulfill my educational purpose in life. I have a destiny and that destiny includes trying to find ways to cure Leukemia. Leukemia runs in my family--my grandmother and mother both died of the disease and so have some cousins. Everytime this disease strikes it also financially devastates the family for generations to the point of bankruptcy and poverty. This cancer of the blood disease has plagued us and destroyed us and I am determined to fight back against it by going to medical school and finding a cure. I have a biology emphasis in my high school right now with a 3.9 GPA but my family does not have any money for my education. However, I can't think that way--giving up is not in my vocabulary. All I know is that I need to concentrate on the present--get my grades up and take all the necessary classes to find a way to get to college. Right now I attend a private school because of scholarships but every year I don't know if I am going to get the scholarships, as I have to reapply all the time. Even paying our share of the tuition is a great struggle. I have the terrible stress that someday they are going to pull me out of class in the middle of school as say, "sorry--you're tuition payment is not paid, you'll have to leave the school now." I know my best chance of attending college is by having the best primary education possible for the competitive application process. The rich kids all have tutors and can afford all these university test preparatory classes where I can't and I'm at a disadvantage. If I get this scholarship--I can use it for my tuition next year and hopefully have enough money to do both. In addition, if successful in my academic career I can help people at the same time who are very sick, especially little kids who are suffering from cancer. I can actually contribute to society for the rest of my life by giving back. If I do become a doctor, and find the right research institute I just know I can cure Leukemia. It's just something that I feel in the depths of my inner soul. It also means that with a doctor in the family that all family members who become sick will have someone looking after them personally. It also means not being charged tens of thousands of dollars--or even hundreds of thousands of dollars just trying to stay alive. No more medical bankruptcies sending our family into poverty and the hope that they can get well with family looking after them in a professional surrounding. If, only I can stay in my high school for two more years I'll have the best chance of transferring to a university with scholarships. Unfortunately, it's looking slimmer and slimmer for me to stay at this school every year. Every year the tuition goes up and it does not include take into account any extra fees for lab or mandatory Pys Ed, computer needs, uniforms or events. Last year even with the scholarships I just barely skated through. As I mentioned--my mother died of this when I was smaller, so I'm determined to get this education anyway possible. I'm doing it for myself, for family, for the world and for her. I want to become the world's leader on treating Leukemia and if I can find some help along the way I sure would be forever grateful, thank you. Tyler

My experience with mental health has shaped my goals and understanding of what I discovered to be a much bigger ignorant world. My mother suffered from severe mental health problems and acute depression. In fact, it runs in my family. Today mental health problems and depression is widely viewed as something to avoid and talk about and that still upsets me today. It’s because the people who suffer these things need the most help but often get the least support from people, and that includes family! It’s shunned and not to be talked about or something not to seek treatment for because it could be a family stigma. People who suffer from mental health are often terribly desperate and crying out for help by their actions. It’s actually a cry for help! They can hurt themselves or go on destructive rampages---but they don’t want to; it’s just the only thing they feel they can do in their emotions to try and assuage away the pain. My grandfather and mother were both severely bi-polar and as time goes by, I may discover I might be too and I often worry about myself for the future. Even so, I at least have a basic understanding that whatever the outcome is I will get help so I can positively deal with it and will tell myself it’s not my fault. When I see other kids in bad emotional straits, I often try to tell them just that. Feelings are real and they affect us---even though in a practical sense and birds eye view of things it might not be that bad at all---in the moment sometimes someone who is hurting can’t see it and all they know is their hurtful suffering at that moment. Part of my new shaped understanding is to let other people know to be MORE understanding. This world is often indifferent, callous and cold to other human beings. I get angry at times the way some people treat others in a negative way, kids just don’t know any better. My mother died five years ago and though I won’t go into detail about that, other kids were terribly cruel about what happened so that I had to attend another school and suffered from that time. My father suffered extreme psychological pain for years (PTSD) from experiencing hurting children in war torn Africa. He has nightmares sometimes still—but his way of making himself feel better is actually by helping others in church or volunteering for charities, especially for little children. He says it’s a psychological “lift me up.” It makes his soul feel better—it gives justification for his reason for living. Overseas, he said he wasn’t in a position to stop what happened and it haunts him to this day. When my mother died, we lost a double income, our house, our life savings stolen by step relatives and I needed child grieve counseling. Because of the new school I’m in ---it has made a huge difference in my own mental health but it’s expensive so that every year I don’t know If my dad can afford the tuition. All our success completely depends on my scholarships. My goals are shaped by my life’s experience so far. I want to become a doctor and help people get better from all the sickness that they may have in life. In my relationships with my friends, I educate them on life regarding people suffering from mental health. I want them to think about their actions, think about how they are contributing to the hurt of some innocent person if they laugh or poke fun of them. Ultimately, the worst thing we can do ---is do nothing. People with mental illness can’t help themselves, they just don’t know what to do. The world is depending on us to help them. It’s our moral obligation for them. There’s no other way to look it. This essay is dedicated to my mother Julie. I miss you very much.

My greatest adversity ever is having my mother pass away a few years back; she had cancer. As a result of that I was in a severe depression in life and didn't know what to do. My father didn't know what to do either as he too was also mourning. One day, I realized that I should adopt my mother's "spirit"--what I mean is that my mother was a cheerful soul, and did anything she could in helping others. In return, her good works made her feel better about life. It was good for her soul and even her health! My mother was the happiest in feeling like she could make a difference in the world. When this realization came to mind I asked myself, "what could I do to make the world better even though I'm just a kid myself?" Well, I started volunteering for things with organizations that needed help. First, I volunteered for things that really didn't get me excited much and I was getting depressed again until I found one that finally fit my personality: VBS! That is, every spring I volunteer for coaching sports with little kids. I teach them the fundamentals about football, lacrosse and different competitive games. These small kids make me laugh so much as I get a kick out of the work too. Sometimes, I have to tell the boys not to tackle each other on the field when we're not actually in the middle of playing games--that's the biggest challenge as some kids cry when they are suddenly tackled: Controlling these wild feral children who haven't learned manners yet is a challenge! I ask myself sometimes, "was I like that?!" My father assures me that I was. As the seasons change so does the volunteer work. During the year I also help tutor the younger grades. A lot of kids I found out can't join sports when they want to because they have learning disabilities and can't make good grades so I help them. You could say I'm the sports tutor for the smaller kids. That makes me feel good too because lots of these kids I see later on playing in middle school and really becoming good athletes later on. I feel like I was a part of their success both on and off the field. The best camp day during the summer involves anything with water. We have a water battle day on the entire football field. We break up into different teams and have the biggest water war anyone ever saw and it includes counselors as well. It's really the talk of the town and everyone looks forward to it very much. The parents get a kick out of it too by parking and watching everything from the bleachers while laughing and taking pictures for their memories. Yes, I could have stayed stuck in my depression. Even though some days are better than others I learned from my mother when she was alive that sometimes, we do have to walk through the "Valley of the Shadow of Death"--but it doesn't say we have to stay there. It says we have to walk through it. The good and not so good of life I've discovered ebbs and flows so try and stretch out the good and try to ebb out the bad. I know mom is looking down from heaven above and I want her to be proud of me. The way I look at is that: As long as we're still breathing we still have a mission and that's to make the most out of life.

I would have everyone read War & Peace, by Tolstoy: This is because we are living in such a globally dangerous time and we tend to forget history. World War One and Two and the political dictatorships born afterwards killed hundreds of millions of people. It makes me wonder if we are on the precipice of another global catastrophe?! We've had pandemics, war and invasion, food shortages and world inflation along with seemingly two sides lining up again to "duke it out" over the expansion of resources for their economic world domination. In the movie, there is human suffering from war, separation of loved ones, a collapse of all order but out of the ashes there is still the hope of humanity. Dr Zhivago thought he died without affecting any good for all of Russia but his poetry and love for Lara saved her life. Actually, his love for her and his country saved them both. His poetry saved the soul of Russia even though the country was virtually obliterated---even a nation has a soul and when that soul still lives, so do the people to rise out of the ashes like the Phoenix. In WWII, my family was decimated because virtually all the men in my family were killed, mostly in the Pacific Theatre. Despite this, the remnant of my family believed in the American dream to forge on and rebuild their lives out of the ashes of a crazy world that nearly destroyed itself. This book lets everyone realize that even if the world is spinning out of control we should look deep into our own humanity and still see the goodness that's left in all of us---It's the prescription for wounded world. When we crave peace and prosperity more than anything else then we will manifest this anecdote. Yes, unfortunately, it seemingly appears history does repeat itself with our suffering.. but maybe a world leader who is in a pivotal role in the modern world will pick up this book and re-read it. Only then, to remember the awful suffering of war, famine and economic collapse can we re-ignite our souls into making sane decisions. Only then too, can we realize the panacea for our hope of peace. I hope you read my letter here Mr. Putin, Mr. Jinping and Mr. Khamenei and read the book---you may save the world just in time by doing so.

My mother had mental health issues and suffered from severe depression diagnosed by her doctors. Even though she was never tested for it she was most likely bi-polar as well. My grandfather was severely by-polar we find out and so was my mother’s sister. Mom was afraid if she was diagnosed with bi-polarity that they would take away her current depression medicines and be put on different meds instead. The truth is: She was dependent on her depression medicine. Her high anxiety and fears overrode doctors’ recommendations in getting tested for it. Later on, her emotional actions became starker as either terribly depressed or very elated in back-and-forth outbursts. This exhausted my poor mother and it exhausted the family. My father did everything he could to help her but my mother insisted she have things done her own way. Mental health affects everyone. Everyone hurts for the person who is suffering from mental illness but it doesn’t mean you stop loving them, but unfortunately it often means you suffer along with them feeling helpless for them. One day, my father came back from work and had to sit me down when I was small. He told me that mom wanted a separation (divorce) but couldn’t really say why. This hurt my father very much. Later on, I discovered that unscrupulous people told my mom if she got a divorce that she would automatically find happiness and never be sad again or ever need medication. Those people also introduced alcohol to my mom and that became a whole other problem. As time progressed, I so happened to discover that those same people who told my mother this were ALL divorced themselves and had awful morals and in their own private lives highly dysfunctional. I realized sometimes people with mental challenges are often taken advantage of by others because they can be weak in mind and spirit, are confused and don’t know what advice to take or follow. They are often vulnerable and if they don’t have anyone looking out for them people try and use them. When that happened right afterwards, it was discovered that my mother was diagnosed also with Leukemia, which is cancer of the blood. Slowly, over time her conditioned worsened and she became a shell of her beautiful self-lying in bed at the hospital. I further found out, the same people telling my mother to separate from my father were also telling him to divorce my mother and spoke bad of her behind her back. My father never spoke to any of them afterwards ever again. He was patient and loving and loyal to my mom till the very end. My mother passed away on Labor Day five years ago when I was only ten years old. My father stayed with her as much as he could in the hospital trying to stay strong for us. None of those supposed friends ever came to see her, no not even once at the hospital or even sent a card. Only my father and a few old friends from church and some college girlfriends she knew back in school were there. In the Bible it says, “not to believe what people say but what people show you,” truly we found that out. As a result, I myself became severely depressed and was diagnosed as such by children bereavement counselors. My mental health myself for a kid was in the; “danger zone.” Our healing has been taking the time trying to celebrate and remember all the goodness in life instead of being sad over the bad stuff. We discovered our sick family members aren’t really who they are—they’re ill and are people who need help and It’s NOT their fault. We’ve come a long, long way. We are forever more compassionate and understanding of people who are going through what we have. People who are depressed need a blanket of support from a whole community of people, the right people so no one falls through the cracks of receiving help—ever. I want to become a doctor when I grow up for a career, I want to not only help people but cure them of their sickness. We only have so many minutes on this earth so I want to make mine count.

The losing of my mother a few years back affected me in the worst way: I fell into a deep depression, I needed child grieve care, I was lethargic about school or simply about life altogether. In short, my spirit left me and the joy that was once in my life was now bleakly gone. In other words, I felt like a walking zombie to the entire world. Some of the challenges my father and I had to face was losing both parental incomes all at once, losing our house, having relatives we trusted steal our life’s savings, not have the life insurance companies pay out over legal technicalities and having people who I thought were friends just not talk to us anymore because they think that cancer is contagious, I remember that was an all-time low. The sport of my choice is football and lacrosse, I like the rough and tumble of the field because it makes me feel alive inside and out. The crowds cheering you on, and people elated in seeing our team win crucial points and games. On the field I’m no longer Tyler, the kid whose mom passed away—but number 21, the kid who scored a touchdown or goal. The sadness of my recent past doesn’t exist on the field—only the champion athlete. In the 8th grade we won our middle school league championship. It was then I really realized that as long as we still breathe on this planet, we have what it takes to still make a difference. The irony, is that my mother told me this shortly before she died before she knew she was even sick. It also occurred to me I can pay things forward to others by being of help and of seeing my own struggles in theirs. It causes great empathy for me to see others trying to make sense out of a senseless world. If I can just help, if I can just crack a smile on someone’s face or point them in the right direction or just let them know somehow, someway that there’s still good life to live in all of us despite any setback. Then, I will have helped someone start living again. I further decided that I am going to try and get the best grades possible and become a doctor and find the cure for Leukemia which runs viciously in my family. I am going to help thousands upon thousands of people in the future with my cure and someday the scourge of this disease will be a long faded reality; that’s my life’s goal---talk about "paying it forward." If I’m successful, then my goal for helping thousands will be paid back in perpetuity forever! In the interim, I’m working hard to keep my grades exemplary and will continue to help those one by one whenever I can. Right now, I go to a private college preparatory school but so far, I have to keep getting scholarships to go. Every year is a struggle to get the tuition I need and the scholarships are drying up. The longer I get to stay in this school and get excellent grades is the best chance of obtaining scholarships for myself later on. I am hoping and praying for your scholarship award every day.

Some of the adversity I have had to overcome is my father and I still worry about being homeless now---we have NO relatives who can help us because they turned out to be dishonest. My father and mother both had good jobs at one point. However, my mother a few years back developed Leukemia (blood cancer) and then she died quickly. This was at the beginning of Covid and my father lost his job because he had to be at the hospital all the time and couldn't travel for work anymore. After Covid, my dad's job no longer existed so he couldn't get it back either. Currently he's still looking but is going through age discrimination. In just a very short period of time our entire lives changed---it was a traumatic shock and we still have not gotten over it. My mother and father suffered from severe depression over everything and I being just ten years old at the time didn't know how to help them at all. This was hard on me as a kid. Many people don't understand that when someone dies suddenly in your family everyone who loves them is affected in the worst way---feeling like you died yourself and then you're just numb to the world afterwards. Currently, I go to a private school and through a myriad of scholarships I am able to attend, but those scholarships are drying up now and I need to replace them for next year. Staying in this particular school I'm at offers me the best chance of receiving larger scholarships for college later on---so I just have to make it to graduation. I just have too! When my mother died--my step grandmother stole my college savings account and gave it to her daughter's family instead and never returned our phone calls back: My mother trusted her and she should not have. So, things have been pretty rough the last couple of years. Real rough. Despite my own depression, I have a 4.0 and I am also a great athlete. Furthermore, I am passionate about majoring in a STEM program because I want to find the cure for medicine and want to study bio-medicine. Medical School is extremely hard to get into but I want to open up a cancer research center someday and save lives so people don't have the same problems we went through. The ripple effect of having someone die in your immediate family is shattering in the worst way. You can't sleep, can't eat, worry about bills, can't even have the time to grieve at all. When that someone dies---it flips fast into darkness and you just can't seemingly ever get out of it. Even people you thought were your friends in the community stop talking to you because they think cancer is contagious. That was an extra bit of salt on the wound but I found out that was common afterwards. My mother was beautiful, so full of life and charity for others. A sainted being like no other and she beamed like a lighthouse in the service of others. She had cute freckles and a soft voice that could soothe a broken heart for any hurt child---as she was a elementary school teacher and she loved to garden in the backyard. Next to us, flowers and children were her most favorite things in the world. Her name was Julie but I simply called her mama. I miss her voice, her smell, falling asleep in her arms while she rocked me softly to a lullaby when little: I will find the cure for cancer--I will.

My mother died a few years ago from Leukemia and as a result I became deeply depressed. When this happened people avoided my father and me, since mother had cancer they felt that cancer was actually contagious---especially the older folks. All the people that we thought were our friends seem to disappear all around us thinking they might catch cancer too. Sometime after, I read about how all these kids in Africa were dying because they did not have clean drinking water. Whole families were dying or getting terribly sick from dysentery, ring and hook worm, typhus, malaria and other water borne diseases. In addition, children would have to walk miles from their villages with canisters to find potable water and often they wouldn't make it back --child traffickers would kidnap them and sell them into slavery never to be seen again. The stories were terrible and I thought of small kids losing their mothers like me. So, the loss of a family member really hit home for me. I wanted to help these families but didn't know what to do until a couple of years ago I found "Wells of Life," an international NGO that builds clean water wells in Uganda so people don't die. I participated in a fundraising walk for Wells of Life that helped raise over $220,000! With the money the non-profit made I think over ten wells were built and plaques were dedicated at the drill sites. It felt good to be a part of something bigger than myself. It felt great just to do something good if that makes sense. I felt that I was part of the solution for someone hurting in a far away land. In the end, I realized something about myself: I learned that I am happiest when I feel empowered to do something good for others. As a result, I feel that I am going to keep this philosophy of helping others forever-- it really makes a difference in me which ends up making up a big difference for other people. Seeing the pictures of African kids who really enjoyed the new well in their village really made an impression on me. I thought it was a great photo and I think my mother would have been very pleased by my participation. Having a disease or a sickness affects everyone in family and the remedy for that is just---- kindness. peace

This scholarship was made for me! My mother died when I was only ten years old as well. My father never abandoned my mother or me. Even in the face of relatives who tried to seperate us as much as possible making things as difficult for us as they could. My mother had cancer when she passed away and the step relatives stole our life savings so we were broke, lost our house, nearly homeless, and my father lost his job too because he couldn't travel for business. He had to stay at the hospital all the time for my mom. This happened ---all at once. My father showed superhuman resilience by applying for hundreds of jobs, applying for scholarships to take me out of the crummy school I was in and putting me into a private school which I sorely needed. He inspired me to maintain a 4.0 GPA so I could keep my scholarship. When my mother died I was so sad that I was clinically depressed and didn't care about anything, even living. He inspired me to keep going, despite everything that happened. He is a man of God and prays a lot--gives me inspiration of never throwing in the towel and using our experience to help all kinds of other people who are hurting because there are so many broken people out there. We do volunteer work, help sad kids, talk to seniors and volunteer at summer day camps for churches too. A true hero doesn't wear a costume, isn't a glamorous person or even drives a fancy car. True heros are the ordinary people of the world, like my father who never gives up in the face of completely overwhelming odds because they simply love you. My dad utterly refuses to give up on me because I matter to him. Someone, once told me that I am "the apple of my father's eye." I now know what that means. Dad told me the best way for me to make a difference in the world is do something important that helps other people because that ripple effect is far reaching into the hearts of many. I thought about that for a long time and came to the conclusion that I am going to find the cure for Leukemia by becoming a doctor--Leukemia is what my mother and her mother and great grandmother all died from. This awful disease (cancer of the blood) has taken a toll on my family for generations and I am now determined to stop it! To become a doctor someday takes great grades and lots of education which is expensive. I can't give up just like my dad says. Keep pushing he says, keep trying and keep doing my best because someday it will all pay off. I wrote a poem about my father that shows how his example has inspires me every single day: MY FATHER---- Is the wind that drives my strength and sail He is the sunlight that brightens my life He is the warmth that keeps me out of the cold and comforts me in strife My father, who has an old man's vision Who's back aches from years of fatigue Yet, by my own admission Is just perfect for me My very own guardian angel dad Given by God to me on this earthly place No matter how tough or sad His love is my saving grace Through the darkest storms Through the toughest day You're there when I need you

The most influential person in my life has been my mother. My mother suffered from Leukemia and even in her last dying days told my father and I to be strong. Hardship doesn't stop coming when you're down--sometimes it gets worse. My mother was a teacher and she spent so much time helping others often in the worst situations possible. She had to report child abuse, she's had to help hungry kids, she worked outside her job to get medical treatment for families and never ever let a stray animal stay homeless. Even when she was sick she was always working, working to help our family, others and even the community all around us. She said that no matter how bad life gets--we still have to be the salt and the light of the world. She said there is no such thing as different people; not black or white but there are only the good and the bad and each side is always trying to recruit the other. Therefore, we have the free will to CHOOSE what kind of person we want to be. So, she said, "always choose to be good." I asked her when I was small how to tell the difference and she answered, "helping others is always on the side of good." I thought about that for a good long time: "Helping others is always on the side of good." That sentence has had an overwhelming effect on formulating my father's and my own life's philosophy. My father and I have incorporated that aspect of my mother's personality, her belief system, her very spirit into our daily lives. It is the guiding force in which we live by. In other words, we are simply a force for good or we're not. If we are a force for good then we can change the world for the better if we just try. We just have to have the inspiration to try--what a powerful messenger my mother was for us. It is because of her that my family didn't give up and become homeless after our step relatives stole every sent we had when she died. It is because of her that my father and I who have nothing now are yet still able to contribute to others. It is because of her that I still try to get the best possible grades when I am severely depressed even when I often feel like just giving up. My father says it's her ghost and spirit that kind of live inside of us today--he said "she's not gone--she's just not here." Yes, she's alive and well in so many parts of the world where there is still hope for us all. My mother almost died twice when she was a little girl and didn't give up at overcoming those odds to try and achieve everything she wanted in life. To start a career, get married, have children and help others. As a result of her fortitude, I was able to be born in this world and it is because of both my parents that we will never stop trying, especially in the darkest of times. A Poem in Her Memory: Even in the quietest of those moments my mother is there Even still in the darkest of moments my mother's spirit lives on Even in terrible despair I hear her song When the waves crash furiously against the ship of our hearts She is the lighted beacon that guides our way In the storm that rips apart She answers when I pray Even today Miss you mama... miss you

I know this scholarship is for a single mom--but that is what my dad is; he's a mom too. My mother died a few years ago from Leukemia and it was the most horrible thing ever watching her slowly fade away from this earth when I was only ten years old. Before, my father was always traveling for work but when he had to stay at the hospital he lost his job. Then covid came and he couldn't get his job back. My father had to find a way for us to survive when there was no money coming in. The step-relatives stole our life savings, and the life insurance companies wouldn't pay out due to technicalities. My father always somehow found enough scholarship money to keep me in my private school as I am gifted--the public schools were teaching me nothing. When they raised our rent my father started consulting to see if he could earn extra money but nothing is guaranteed. You've heard said that some people live day to day--we actually do. We have to strategize to pay what bills and when. If the car breaks down then we're in big, BIG trouble. Now, Im starting the tenth grade next year and it is a miracle that we got this far without moving. My father interviews for jobs but there is discrimination because he is older. I miss my mother every day. She was a soft-spoken, kind and generous and beautiful woman. What has happened that is good is that my father and I are closer than we have ever been. He helps me with my homework, pays attention to me when I have problems, and takes me out to do something special like bowling when I get good grades. My dream is to be a doctor and find a cure for Leukemia and name that cure on behalf of my mother, Julie. I don't expect to win this scholarship but coming from a kid who will never be over the death of his mother it feels good to write about it. I suppose this is writing therapy too. I pray for every kid who has lost a parent because this world is so full of division and there is so much bad influence on families that it becomes so much harder for kids to survive if only one parent is looking out for them. My father does it all---and in addition to that he helps out other families with only one parent moms and dads alike who don't know what to do. We broken families have become a community and it is only by the grace of God and helping hearts with one another that we are able to even survive. Peace.

So, my favorite Swift song from the 1989 album is "Out of the Woods" because four years ago I lost my mom to cancer--Leukemia. My mother was beautiful with gorgeous freckles and piercing blue eyes. My mother fought terribly long and hard and sometimes we even thought she was getting better. The whole time was a rollercoaster of getting better and then getting worse. Also, the whole time my mother would actually say "are we out of the woods yet" to us and the doctors. There were so many challenges like blood transfusions, donors, dangerous medicines to take but if she didn't she would die anyway and bone marrow searches. It was awful..just awful. In my bed late at night I would pray to God and ask if "we were out of the woods yet" with mom. Going through the agony of seeing the most important person in the world at only ten years old slowly waste away put me as a child in a deep clinical depression for a kid, she eventually died on Labor day. Our step relatives stole our money, the insurance companies wouldn't pay out on technicalities, we lost our home and my father lost his job and then couldn't get it back because of covid. But one thing happened that we didn't expect--our faith. Our faith caused us to be closer together like never before and even though my mother lost her life to this terrible disease, my father and I have become so much appreciative of life, of chruch and God, of frienships and what we do have instead of what we don't have. My father says mom reached out to him in a vision afterwards and told him that heaven was real and that she was there---to especially, hang on to our faith. I know it sounds kind of crazy but my father swears by it. As a result, we try to live our fullest every day and know that when we give up the ghost in the physical body there is something much more beautiful waiting for us on the other side. This earth is not our final destination---this earth is temporary. When we walk through the foyer of heaven's gilded gates of pearl and gold and see our loved ones with Jesus there--then we'll know we're finally home. In conclusion, I may have lost my earthly mom but I realize she's not gone. For right now she's just not here and ---I have gotten a greater truth out of the whole thing; we're going to be together again. Someday.

Firstly, you have to understand that Barbie’s house is also Ken’s house—after all, they spend so much time together. If you find Barbie getting a facial in the parlor, you’ll find ken sipping a cocktail floating in the pool too. So, I have to partially look at it from a guy’s perspective. The house is located on the cliffs of Malibu in California. That’s because they only run with the young and the plastic, that’s easy to do when you’re popular –you never age! Gotta keep up with the Kardashians you know. Secondly, the house is a boxy modern minimalist design, but that doesn’t mean it’s small. It’s 40,000 sqft over 15 acres. Barbie and Ken are all about entertaining all the time. There’s a pool in the backyard in the shape of a surfboard with a picture of a surfboard painted on the bottom. It has four grass canopy bars reminiscent of the tropics all at the corners of the outside patio facing east, west, north and south—so no matter where you are—you’re never thirsty. The house comes automatically with its own beach dog; it’s a cute black and white girl Border Collie with a pink bow around her diamond collar. Her name is Josie and she was the Alpha Phi Omega’s sorority mascot. The same sorority Barbie came from. Now, this house has its own movie theatre big enough to sit thirty guests. However, never invite GI Joe and his friends over to show a war movie—they get out of hand sometimes. Ask Barbie’s little sis Skipper—she left in a huff! Especially, when they have had too many shirley temples. Barbie and Ken found this out when they previewed “Saving Private Ryan.” The house has ten bedrooms for guests. It also comes with a sauna, a steam room, a hair and skin boutique, a bi-level living room so two parties can take place at once. The upstairs one has a pool table, pin ball machines, soda fountain (Ken’s). The downstairs living room has massage chairs, esthetician corner and a coffee bar (for Barbie) and there’s a separate bowling alley too —that was Ken’s idea. In the back yard, there is a volleyball court with stands to watch games for other plastic guests. In addition, Ken has his own surfboard cabana where he keeps his boards for himself and for guests to borrow. The kitchen is state of the art with a full juice bar and sushi bar, after all-- this IS California. Lastly there are two spas, one inside and one outside and let me tell you when the shirley temples come out the plastic gets hot. I have no idea what that means but it sounds dangerous so I threw it in there. After all, there’s a reason why they call them action figures. Finally, there’s a huge gazebo in the front yard along with a horse paddock so Ken and Barbie can renew their vows once a year and go riding off on the beach at sunset afterwards. Other than these things mentioned—it’s just regular home. Oh, there’s one last thing. There’s a psycho-analyst room so their marriage therapist can come over and counsel them when needed. One day they both needed therapy when they found out they were made in China. It also happens to be sound proof so Ken can’t over hear her complaining of him—if he does, he gets angry, steals her corvette and hangs out with GI Joe until they work things out.

My hat would choose the Gryffindor Dormitory because that best fits my personality. I am naturally inquisitive which would either get me in trouble in solving a mystery or win me an award for solving something no one else could. Another reason that would make me a perfect fit for this house is that I love working in teams of friends. Harry had his Ron and Hermione and I would have my compadres too. Furthermore, in all the films Harry had to deal with bullies and on one occasion, I had to deal with them too. Harry followed the rules until the bullies exposed themselves as being guilty but it wasn’t always easy. Especially in the moment when people are trying to pick on you. The big and final reason why I would be a perfect fit for this house is that I have no fear of challenges that most people would cower from. If you can’t look at a challenge in the face having it stop you from your goals—then you will never find and realize your greatest potential. General Patton once said that the essence of true manhood is the person who has enough inner strength to overcome his fears to manifest his duty. Gryffindor students showed leadership in the face of great adversity from the unknown, from adversaries, from impossible situations and even betrayal. There are so many variables in life that no one can ever predict their future 100% of the time. The Harry Potter films are just the newer versions of past stories that underlie this same idea. That is: “If your situation seems impossible then an overriding determination to continue and succeed no matter the circumstances is the only way to be.” You shoot for the stars then at least you may land on the moon..or you die trying. It is that same determination and fortitude that Harry Potter has, that George Washington had, that Henry Fleming had in the Red Badge of Courage or even Luke Skywalker with no guarantees-- we still forge on. Yes, I would take refuge in Gryffindor as I have that ability to keep forging on--to inspire my friends and to look fearlessly at my opponents and the challenges of moving mountains. It almost doesn’t matter if we don't accomplish 100% of our goals but what does matter is that we at least TRY 100% to accomplish our goals. If we don’t—then it IS guaranteed that we won’t and that’s no life to live. Regret is a terrible thing

This is the easiest essay I will ever write. This position, oddly enough shouldn't even be a question in anyone's mind: Do we advocate saving babies' lives? Of course!!!! In my family, this is something that never had to be debated. We just knew. Everyone knew. Simply look into a child's eyes and know that they are worthy to live and are beautiful. More beautiful than the sunset on the beach, more beautiful than a shooting star over the horizon, more beautiful than the melody of a songbird and more beautiful than a sunbeam resting on a flowered patch of roses. Babies are just beautiful. Ever hear a toddler laugh? It brings such joy to the soul of a human being. There's so much proof that we are intelligently designed by a higher power that only fools in their own hearts say, "there is no God." Psalm 14:1. So it is with unfailing and complete bafflement that we don't understand how anyone could take any other position?! I find it eerily strange that everyone advocating for killing infants was brought into this world by parents who thought completely otherwise. Ironically, because of advocates like us including their parents that they even exist to voice such an ugly view. Utterly baffling. The Bible says the devil is the author of lies and confusion--well, that must be true as there can be no other explanation. Everyone knows what a baby is; everyone knows when and how they are conceived; and everyone knows they are a human life. The truth is the truth. Even in our constitution, it says we have the right to life and liberty---I don't have a PhD, so how did the rest of the country miss that? Don't we have laws that stipulate murder is a crime? So how is it that the rest of the nation missed that one too? It's because there is evil in this world. The opposite of life is death: Therefore, I am not pro-death at killing children. I cannot and will not be. I have noticed that everyone who is for abortion is a wounded, misguided, confused, angry and bitter soul trying to take out their self-loathing on the rest of the world. The happier other people are the angrier they get. It's an evident observation that is presented over and over again. So what do we do? Do we tell all the people who weren't supposed to live by their evil philosophies to make up for their parents' wrong decisions by feeling free to go ahead and kill themselves now? By their own rationale, this should suffice by correcting the mistake of life their parents made about them. After all, this is their way of thinking---not mine. What is also true is that there will come a day when we will have to answer for all our trespasses when we give up the ghost. The measure for judgment is the Ten Commandments which is older than any human being that walks the earth today. We knew what was wrong back then and we certainly know it now. May God has mercy on the righteous who walk in his path and ways---for those who don't and cut innocent life from being born they too will suffer the same fate. Whoa! Whoa onto them.

I am a non-traditional student because my mother only after five years when I was born was diagnosed with Leukemia and then passed away when I was ten years old. My father could not afford a babysitter so I had to watch my mom and learn how to use a phone when I was very young to look after my mother who so much of the time was very weak. At times, I had to help her with simple things like taking out dishes or helping make beds. Eventually, she passed away and so not having a mother was very difficult for me afterward as well and I get very sad when I think about her. Suddenly, everyone stopped inviting us to gatherings and people’s parents wouldn’t allow me to play with their kids---I found out later that people think cancer is “contagious.” For a small kid, this was pouring salt into the wounds. My father and I were in a deep depression because my mother was no longer with us. My mother’s name was Julie and she was a beautiful saint. Always volunteering in church, helping people in need and assisting to build up the preschool at church. She had beautiful blue eyes and shimmering copper hair that reflected in the sunlight but mostly her smile lit up the room everywhere she went. She was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside. Right after her passing—my father told me the life insurance companies refused to pay out over technicalities and then covid hit the country and my father lost his job as business came to a halt. We had to move and my father also told me that step-relatives emptied out our bank accounts. My grandfather’s last wife took our life savings—pretending to help out so my father could concentrate on the memorial and then he found out all our money was gone: Things for the last four years have been terrible. The good news is, that my father got me enrolled into the best private school in the county as I am academically gifted but these schools are expensive! I have a 4.0 GPA and every single year my father doesn’t know how long he can keep in there. Every year I am thinking I might have to drop out. I love my school and it is the only thing keeping me going right now, it helped bring me out of my depression. However, things are still tough financially and my father has an enormous amount of stress thinking we may not have enough money to live on. Despite this worry—my father knows and understands how important an education is. So, he tries to find out different ways I can get scholarships to keep me in school. My father is the one who found this scholarship for me that I am applying for right now. My father talks to a lot of parents and the public schools in many ways are not safe right now and he wants me in an environment that concentrates on serious learning only. Therefore, I am hoping to get this scholarship as it will help guarantee another year of education for me where I am at, and every little bit helps. I am praying all the time I can graduate from the school I attend right now but we have a long road in front of us as I am only a freshman right now. Your scholarship will help not only me as a student but would also bring joy to my dad, thank you.

My parents immigrated from Latin America and met in Los Angeles in 1960. They came from hard-working families so much that I never saw them. It was always a babysitter, a neighbor or a relative that had to watch us grow up. One time, I asked my parents why can't one of them come home from work early just to play with me--this was when I was about five years old. The response was that we needed the money and there was never enough. I said, "why not work fewer hours and get paid more?" My father laughed and said--"maybe if we had a chance to go back to school and get an education we could have done that." Then he said, "but that's what I want for you!" As time went by I never forgot that advice. As I got older, I was determined to attend a university and did. However, life throws you some curve balls and you never know what to expect--my wife died four years ago and all our savings went to keeping her alive. In addition, I had to settle all the hospital bills and the life insurance companies refused to pay out over technicalities. It's like starting from first base all over again; we even lost our house. Now, I'm a single dad trying to keep my head above water with my son. He's gifted and attends a private school but it's expensive and even with a scholarship it's hard for me to keep him in there. As a result, I struggle to give him the best head start possible. He wants to become a doctor and find the cure for Leukemia which is what my wife died from and therefore that is why I am writing this essay for any help I can get. Both my parents have long since died and I never forgot that conversation with my father. I attended Roosevelt High School in East Los Angeles and many kids just like me had the same dream but many didn't have the support. The dream that education can be a way out of poverty and the American dream can be realized--but as I said life throws you some curve balls one doesn't often expect. In addition, we have no other relatives who can help us in any way. I suppose we take what life gives us and we try and make the best we can with it. However, we need opportunities to be there for us to take advantage of them. I lost my wife, my job and my home so it's my son and me against the entire world. Therefore, any opportunity, any scholarship to help me with his education I will try and obtain just for him. So help me God.

In ancient history, sailors would use math to calculate distances and seasons to sail the seas. Algebra in Babylonia was used to measure distances and areas and to calculate interest and loans more easily. In Mediaeval Europe, mathematics was used in studies of local motion and war for logistics. Today mathematics has evolved into so many disciplines and industries that it is so intrinsic that there is not one aspect of society that doesn’t use it. Math is important because I can use various aspects of calculations every day to help me like probability or volume/rate in every aspect of my life: It is ubiquitous! In addition, the better you are at it the easier it is for someone to calculate or even estimate probability within a few degrees of freedom for correct decisions. Let’s face it—no one wants to be proven wrong—only proven right, and thus math can help you do that! The decisions we make have to be the right ones in life because the consequences of making wrong decisions can be catastrophic. Math is a precise science that gets us to precise answers. For example, what if you were in charge of fueling jets for long trips and you needed to calculate the right fuel ratio? What if you were an engineer and needed to estimate the dimensions for a spectacular building or were a UN relief worker and needed to calculate the right amount of relief packages for a devastated region because people were counting on you? The result could end up being the difference in someone’s life. A less stark example, but a very important one is how people use mathematics for ordinary life. What if you made a mistake on your tax returns and discovered it by using math, or needed the right calculations for your mortgage rate too? What if you needed precise inventory projections during the Christmas season for the biggest sales of the year? My father read a book on General Patton and he told me that many battles were won because the American army calculated exactly the right amount of amour and fuel needed to win specific battles, so they always made sure they had enough. Who knows, maybe with new forms of astronomical math and physics we can discover how to travel in time through space. What if this thing called Dark Matter is real and we can find a way through mathematical equations to catapult ourselves through it and by it using it to travel long distances at enormous speeds exploring new solar systems? After all, physicists say that the universe is accelerating and if so, why can’t we accelerate with it like a bug hitching a ride on a plane? I enjoy learning math because math is seemingly the antidote for the term, “anything is possible.” If that’s true, then anything IS possible and we can finally solve all the mysteries of the universe. I want to discover time travel and Einstein who was a brilliant mathematician gave us the start in that direction—why can’t I discover the solution through mathematics to do just that?

My mother had mental health issues and suffered from severe depression. Even though she was never tested for it she was most likely bipolar. My grandfather was severely by-polar and so was my mother’s sister. Mom was afraid if she was diagnosed with bipolarity that they would take away her depression medicine and put her on different meds instead. The truth is: She was dependent on her depression medicine. Her high anxiety and fears overrode doctors’ recommendations in getting tested for it. Later on, her emotional actions became starker as she either was terribly depressed or very elated in back-and-forth outbursts. This exhausted my poor mother and it exhausted the family. My father did everything he could to help her but my mother insisted she have things done her way. Mental health affects everyone. Everyone hurts for the person who is suffering from mental illness as it doesn’t mean you stop loving them but unfortunately, it often means you suffer along with them. One day, my father came back from work and had to sit me down when I was small. He told me that mom wanted a separation (divorce) but couldn’t really say why. This hurt my father very much. Later on, I discovered that unscrupulous people told my mom if she got a divorce that she would automatically find happiness and never be sad again. Those people also introduced alcohol to my mom and that became a whole other problem. As time progressed, I so happened to discover that those same people who told my mother this were ALL divorced themselves and had awful morals and in their own private lives highly dysfunctional. I realized sometimes people with mental challenges are often taken advantage of by others because they are weak in mind and spirit. They are often vulnerable and if they don’t have anyone looking out for them then people try and use them. A short time afterward, it was discovered that my mother was diagnosed with Leukemia, which is cancer of the blood. Slowly, over time her condition worsened and she became a shell of her beautiful self-lying in bed at the hospital. I further found out, the same people telling my mother to separate from my father were also telling him to divorce my mother and spoke badly of her; my father never spoke to any of them afterward ever again. My mother passed away on Labor Day four years ago when I was only ten years old. My father stayed with her as much as he could in the hospital trying to stay strong for me. None of those supposed friends ever came to see her, no not even once at the hospital or even sent a card. Only my father and a few old friends from church and some college girlfriends she knew back in school were there. In the Bible, it says, “not to believe what people say but what people show you,” truly we found that out. As a result, I became severely depressed and was diagnosed as such by children's bereavement counselors. My mental health as a kid was in the; “danger zone.” I hated going to the counseling sessions as it made everything worse and my father eventually took me out and we coped with our depression and mental suffering on our own. Now, it’s been four long years of us leaning on each other and taking the time in trying to celebrate all the goodness in life instead of being sad over it. We’ve come a long, long way. I think we’re going to make it after all.

I have an ardent dream to solve the energy crises and have affordable housing all at the same time. For years, I pondered this as a kid coming from a background where having enough money was very challenging for us. Gas, prices were too high, electrical prices were too high, and home prices were too high. How come with all the intellectual minds today no one can come up with a concept that would tackle these issues realistically? Finally, I came up with what the universe and nature have already given us: Nature has given us enough water, power and space for living but we do not utilize these gifts to maximum efficiency for long-term sustainability. Did you know that at least 80% of all the land in California is undeveloped and is owned by the state? How is it that we have a housing crisis when if you build it “they will come.” Especially affordable housing. Therefore, I came up with the concept of the “eco-home.” The eco-home would be self-sustainable catching all its rainwater and recycling all its water use on site. We already have the technology to do that we just don’t do it. Why? If every home had underneath, a small water reservoir and that reservoir had a filtration system for recycling then there would be no water crises. Even if the water use is lowered by only a certain percentage by having your own water, then demand for water prices would drop dramatically and better conservation could finally take place. The eco home should be built on free giveaway land by the state: It should be designed by a contest of many environmental design companies utilizing advanced methods of prefab construction for quick affordable housing. Again, the technology is already there! Companies like Icon build homes for a third of the cost and others build homes out of shipping containers they get for nothing. It should be esthetically pleasing and highly efficient and very comfortable. With no cost for land—and only paying for construction, then after all studies for pre-urban planning have been completed; the eco-community can take place! Now, let’s switch back to helping with the energy crises. What about inventing a solar shingle the size of a shoe box to heat your home and make electricity? That way we can bypass corporate third parties who wholesale large solar packages for expensive contracts. Go to Home Depot and replace a single shingle if needed for $5.99 plus tax. This would drop electricity prices to nothing. In addition, any extra energy you use you can sell back to Southern California Edison and then they can re-sell that for a profit to areas of the country that aren’t in line with electricity conservation. This a huge incentive for any community to start new urban planning with the eco-home. Right now I’m only in the 9th grade—but elect me Governor in the future and I’ll make it happen.

Substance abuse is an epidemic in this country, especially among young people. People try to drown out their negative feelings by doing drugs and abusing alcohol. I discovered the ablest and most successful students are the ones whose parents spend time supporting them regarding their school work and adolescent problems. Conversely, I noticed that other parents who don't pay close attention to their kids have kids who seem to be lost in the world making them vulnerable to serious mistakes. I don't think we young people have the wisdom enough to make decisions on our own. Let's be honest--the growing number of young adults addicted to some kind of substance is out of control, and now this includes vaping! I think there should be an education program for the PARENTS, not just students! The parents have to be given the tools on how to protect their kids, the parents have to be educated to start watching their kids more closely, the parents have to be the ones who are going to be the most vigilant because they are the ones who are supposed to be spending the most time with their children. I know of at least two families who lost kids to drugs because the parents were too busy with their new relationships and jobs to notice their kids drowning in depression. There should be a neighborhood parent concern group connected to a local non-profit in every neighborhood to counter this problem with the information, classes for the families, and with the police and fire department representatives to show how real this problem is. Kids don't realize that something is real until it is too late--we tend to live in the moment only. In addition, there should be a class mandatory taken after school with kids on the harmful effects of drugs both illegal and legal. Many prescription drugs are stolen from parents' homes and distributed to many people. This is like Russian roulette--people are harming their bodies with dangerous prescriptions that aren't theirs and they can end up dead just as easily with drugs from somewhere else. Every year, there is at least one kid who is memorialized because they died. Kids have too much pressure on them now making it impossible for them just to attend classes and be happy; that's where our depression comes from. Kids whose parents are divorced, kids whose friends are now not friends, bullies, parents not caring wrapped up only in their own lives, teachers telling us what to think instead of how to think for ourselves, etc. All these things put pressure on students making us want to escape reality. But, the fact is no matter what we do we can't escape reality so we instead have to change our reality for the better. We can't do it by ourselves--we need the love and support of the parents and the community both. As I mentioned, parent leaders establishing a neighborhood concern group to educate parents to help us is one part. The second part is finding alternative fun and healthy things to do after school instead. What about sponsoring kids to join athletic teams? Or museum trips? Or visiting college campuses? I know that these things take time, money and effort--but aren't we worth it?

I would choose the book, “Bud, Not Buddy” by Christopher Curtis for everyone to read. First of all, kids don’t want to read about books containing lessons so much—they want an experience out of the book like when they go to eat ice cream. “Bud, Not Buddy” is an experience because it travels you back in time to the 1930s when the depression was on. It’s a whole new world to learn about something that contains history as well as culture—and it’s pretty funny at certain times too. An example of this humor is when Buddy thinks certain people are vampires while traveling on the road and refuses to meet with them out in the open. Only kids can appreciate how other kids think and feel in the moment. Adults are sometimes too alien for us, they just don’t get us sometimes. In addition, the description of how black people tried to survive during the depression is also intriguing because it gives a perspective of life at that time through their eyes. I like the language the book uses as well because I think it was fun to read and it was so colorful and entertaining. We kids, have short attention spans and that helped. Someday, I want to write a book about something in my life that uses the words and language that we kids use today, as I think other kids could appreciate it in the future. “Bud, Not Buddy” is everyone’s lost little brother and also represents us kids on how we look at the world and how we need to stick together to survive, it seems just the opposite now. This world is terrible today! I am worn out by all the negative things I see on TV. For example, I don’t know why women are taught to hate men on television? It’s confusing to me. In the book, Buddy is constantly getting just enough help to advance to his next adventure—never giving up on his goal to find family. Without that help who knows what would have happened to Buddy? Would he have been kidnapped? Would he have died?! In life, Buddy in the book eventually proved to me that this human race needs to stick together; help each other. Otherwise, like Linus says in the Great Pumpkin, “We’re doomed.”

Years ago, I saw a grandma weeping in the back of my church. I didn’t know what was wrong with her so I approached and told her that God loved her and gave her a big hug. I was about 9 years old. Her daughter died in a traffic accident because her husband was drinking. I told her how beautiful heaven was and that she was going to see her again someday. That small gesture of kindness put a smile on her face and it made me feel really good at the time knowing I helped someone with their sadness. A year later, my mother died of cancer and she was there to return the favor. Ever since then, I wanted to replicate that same little miracle of kindness with others but life’s busyness kept getting in the way. I put up notices at church that if anyone needs help, they can call my dad and get in touch with me but no one ever did. So finally, I just decided to be a volunteer at the senior living facility and help the elderly there instead. The facilitator said they were desperate to have visitors come and volunteer but no one ever does. I just couldn’t believe it! In my faith, kindness is free and there are plenty of examples of it in the Bible. Now, I have all kinds of plans for the seniors like ice cream socials, board game night and senior trivia contests. That stuff is just pure fun for me but for them, it’s a blessing. My father mentioned a story once that when he was much younger, his former church tracked him down and asked if he would say a few kind words about a senior who passed away whom he used to know and help which no relative ever visited at his home. Apparently, I found out my father used to pick up the elderly folks where they lived and took them to church in a van every week for a few years. Really?! When the man was dying, he asked if the church could track my father down and visit him to say goodbye. Unfortunately, the church couldn’t find my father in time and passed so when they finally did reach my dad, he agreed to come to the gentleman’s memorial. However, there was one problem---my dad was babysitting four adopted kids who were his best friend’s children who were five years old at the youngest and eleven being the oldest. They could attend the memorial with my father as a lesson about our lives and doing "good works" while we can. This church used to be thriving with thousands of members in the 1980’s but because of changing demographics this church only had about sixteen members left. When the memorial was over all sixteen members of the church now very old with white hair, and holding canes were crying as my father shook their hands and hugged them goodbye. Yes, they were tears for Jim who passed away but tears of joy because they knew he was going back home to heaven in his new body and not in pain anymore either. They were also tears for the “sweet blessing” of seeing children in church again--which they said they haven’t seen in over fourteen years and asked God to give them that memory one last time before they too were to leave this earth. In that story, and with Ms. Donselman, I realized kindness is something I can do as a kid. Kindness costs nothing-- but they do cause miracles.

I am passionate about giving back to the community by becoming a doctor---and I love traveling and helping others. So, my conclusion was to become a travel doctor and travel to many different countries that need doctors in emergencies when I get into my career. This would include visiting countries suffering from catastrophes such as earthquakes, wars, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes or fires to name a few. I would be able to see the world by helping others--do you know of any other way to do it better? I don't. By the time I die, I want to be able to improve or save the lives of over 100,000 people directly or indirectly with my travels the same way “Doctors Without Borders” do their work. Last summer, I helped out with an international NGO called “Wells of Life” which builds clean water wells in Africa so people don't die of polluted water. We had a massive fundraiser and raised over $220,000 in a community walk-a-thon to build over 40 wells for countries suffering from extreme drought. Many don't realize that in Africa people suffer from malaria, typhus, and dysentery, and children often even die from diarrhea from not having enough clean water--it's pretty bad. So, even though my travel plans don't entirely include sightseeing or historical sites my way of seeing the world does include immersing myself in service and getting to know the culture through the people I am going to help. I am also hoping to give a good impression of Americans overseas at the same time because lots of people don't like Americans for whatever reason. I decided this was what I was going to do ever since I saw a documentary about a U.S. military hospital ship with medical volunteers who went to Indonesia to help out people who were devastated by a terrible tsunami that occurred in 2004. This is going to sound strange, but I asked God to give me insight into how I can help people on earth when I was ten years old and I saw that documentary right afterward. That Tsunami occurred on a certain day---December 26, which is my actual birthday and I knew it was a sign. My mother died from Leukemia when I was ten years old and ever since then, I knew I had to do something important. Very important. Right now, my grades are excellent—I have a 4.0 GPA at a private school with a biomedical emphasis as a sort of pre-major and if I don’t get enough money to pay the tuition I would have to withdraw from this great school. The life insurance companies didn’t pay out over technicalities, my father also lost his job and we almost became homeless because of everything. All the bad stuff it seems tends to happen all at the same time and I don’t know why. My father said it isn’t the bad stuff that “makes us or breaks us” but how we handle things after they happen. My father said for me to find as many scholarships as possible and we will find a way to keep me in school together, so that’s what I’m doing but we can’t do it alone ourselves. I need your help along with other scholarships to keep me going: I’m going to travel the world; I'm going to help people and I’m going to make a difference.

It is important to manage your money well because if you don't you will never have any resources to rely on during the lean years. My father lost his job not too long ago--the money he saved up saved us! I think about the old Bible story of Joseph in Egypt, how he told Pharaoh there were going to be seven years of famine and so the King of Egypt saved the grain for those bad times--and that saved his nation. Since students are the poorest people in the universe we have to manage what little we have to survive throughout the year. Can we pay for our classes? Do we have food to eat? Can we pay for books? Clothes for winter? All these things come into mind when financially planning your year out. That doesn't even include transportation costs. My father said when he was in college many students had financial immaturity and spent all their money on frivolous things at the beginning of the year and then flunked out. They flunked out not because they had bad grades but bad financial preparedness. Imagine having a 3.7 and telling your parents you're dropping out of school?! Not too cool. My father also said they never saw those students ever again--that is, they never re-enrolled back into school! They never finished their degrees. I believe every student should have to go through a one-time financial planning orientation at the beginning of the school year. This orientation should include: (1) Finding a job, (2) how to save money, (3) how to spend money responsibly (4) credit card addiction and abuse, (5) grants and scholarships, (6) housing do's and don'ts, (8) how to open and manage a bank account (7) the philosophy of not being a "borrower nor lender be" and (8) fraud awareness. There should be a professional guest speaker in delivering this orientation and there should be an incentive to practice this with a "Bankers Club" to join sponsored by a financial institution as a club on campus. During the year, by belonging to the club that meets once a week you can get financial advice and utilize any resources or opportunities to make your nest egg grow. For example, this club can get the financial institution to donate $300.00 to help open your bank account if you keep your money with them for a year and still be a member of the "Banker's Club." No one knows how to manage money automatically--things have to be taught to make us successful regarding that. The earlier we students can learn the secrets of good management of money the easier it will for us as adults.

I think this scholarship was written uniquely for me because when I was ten years old my mother died of Leukemia. My father, was devastated and so was I. We were both angry and confused and couldn't understand why it ever happened. When it did happen-- we found out our relatives stole our life savings too. The "steps" took my mom and dad's savings and my inheritance from my grandfather for my education. To make things worse, the insurance companies wouldn't pay out over technicalities and we lost our home. Those same step relatives, refused to return our money and phone calls and the hospital bills just piled up all at the same time. The kid grieve counselors said I was clinically depressed and told me that my father was too. For a son, to see his father, a decent and good man cry for the first and only time is awful--a deep hurt that almost killed him. Despite this, he made sure that my education wasn't going to suffer because of everything. My father, yanked me out of the 5th grade and put me in a private Christian school where bullies didn't say anything bad anymore about my mom. My father didn't have the money to keep me in there as he lost his job from being away from work to be at the hospital--then covid came and he couldn't get it back. As a result, he keeps taking odd jobs to keep us afloat but unfortunately for us there's no high salary or benefits anymore. I told my father I want to be a doctor and find the cure for Leukemia--he just smiled at me and said, "we'll do that together, son." Flash forward just over three years now and I'm in the same school! My father somehow has always found the money to still keep me in. Through writing scholarships, getting grants, tutoring me or earning money through odd jobs he's just barely been able to make it happen. However, from year to year and semester to semester I don't know if I am going to be able to stay in. It's a terrible worry for me all the time. I have a 4.0 GPA at the hardest and best school in the county but I could be asked to leave anytime if payment can't be made. There's no lack of students as there is a great waiting list for some other kid waiting to take my place in a moment whose parents have all the money in the world. My father is the ONLY person who has supported me in my life so far in my well being and education. All of the so called relatives never talked to us again, my mothers' so called friends never even came around to the memorial or visited her in the cemetery. Of course, relatives never came either. My father, also found out being a single dad has labeled him "persona non grata" with groups of people! Just because we are not a complete family it seems like we are not invited to the community and social events with other people anymore. Especially, if the women run it. We just don't understand it at all. We were there for these same folks when needed in days past. My parents were always helping others. Anyway, my father is my hero, my saint, guardian angel and best friend all wrapped up in a name simply called "dad." Here's to you dad--I love you. Someday, I WILL be a doctor and someday I WILL make you proud of me. Someday, dad; someday.

My life goals are to be a doctor someday ---this is because my mother suffered from terrible depression and all her doctors simply did was prescribe anti-depressant medicine which she eventually felt she couldn’t live without. In the long run these medicines kept her natural healing process from adjusting and working to cure her. As time went on, she felt the medicines had to be stronger to work and it just made things worse as these pharmaceuticals kept changing her mood swings from one extreme to another with her neurology. That’s why I want to be a doctor—I want to find permanent, natural ways of managing and healing depression on an organic level that does not involve synthetic drugs that just get you addicted and mask the pain only. My life’s goals are to heal people in this way and find an actual cure for depression instead of the standard mental health ways of treatment that DOES NOT WORK and makes things WORSE in the long run: That’s not healing but hurting people. I am passionate about being a solution to this problem which affects millions of Americans. Depression is more than a sad mood swing; these people are really hurting deep inside. They need the extra patience and care because they are frustrated and crying out for help whether they know it or not. My mother would cry for days and could never really tell us why? My mother died from Leukemia four years ago but I seriously think her depression was the thing that brought it all on. No matter what we did we could not make her happy and we could not change her mind that everything was really okay. This affected all of us---seeing someone you love and feeling completely HELPLESS to help her get well exhaustive and totally heartbreaking. I think I’m a great candidate because I am going to dedicate the rest of my life in trying to do something about it. My family is hurting for money because the life insurance companies found excuses not to pay out but my father and I are determined to get me into medical school someday even though I am only in high school right now. I go to a private school, have a 4.0 GPA and colleges are already trying to recruit me. However, by the skin of our teeth my father has barely enough to get me by every year. We don’t even have the money for next year but are trying to get scholarships so I can continue on with my academic success.

My plans for college are to attend medical school and become a pre-med major. This is going to be a really tough dream to make come true. Apparently, medical school is hundreds of thousands of dollars—my father is a single parent and does not have any savings for me. I want to go into communities where health care is badly needed, especially for children. Apparently, “the need is great but the workers are few.” Anyway, that’s what my dad says—he is proud of me so far and we both believe this is a noble cause for my future career, but is it a pipe dream? My father is just barely scraping by keeping me in my private high school. My school is college preparatory and I have a 4.0 but he says he may not have the funds for me to attend next year. If, I can get at least two years of this school underneath my belt I will have a greater chance of becoming more eligible for scholarships later on. Scholarship information says, less than 30% of students in the bottom 25% of income attend a four-year college, and more than half of those who do enroll don’t end up graduating. I don’t want that to be me! I have a dream of becoming a doctor!! Honestly, when I read that I got really depressed. I am one of those low-income kids you are talking about---my father lost his job from my mother dying because he had to stay at the hospital with her (Leukemia) and couldn’t travel, then Covid came and he couldn’t get it back. Life has been extremely hard for us the past five years. My father grew up in a poor neighborhood in East Los Angeles, went to Roosevelt High and only knew about universities from looking at them out the freeway car window so he can’t help me through this process. I don’t know even know how much your scholarship is but I will take whatever I can get to pay for supplies or tuition so far. Unfortunately, for me the high schools where I live are bad---even if I was put into the advanced classes I still wouldn’t get the education I deserve, nor are they safe. Right now, in my personal life I am working to maintain my 4.0 which is extremely challenging. I’m also on the football team but with all the demands it’s difficult. A lot of the kids don’t talk to me because my family doesn’t come from money but I do have a great small group of friends who lift each other up every day and we all care for each other like the best of friends. I am also a volunteer for a different charity organization every year—this past year was “Wells of Life” which builds wells in Africa so people don’t die from polluted water. Also, in my personal life I am trying to build up my confidence in the world by helping other kids. Nothing beats building confidence like helping other people—I learned that finally because I really needed that myself after mom passed and dad with some of his friends helped me get out of my depression regarding that. Someday, I am going to cure Leukemia and when I do, I’m going to remember all the people and organizations that helped me along the way—thank you. Tyler

My plans for college are to attend medical school and become a pre-med major. This is going to be a really tough dream to make come true. Apparently, medical school is hundreds of thousands of dollars—my father is a single parent and does not have any savings for me. I want to go into communities where health care is badly needed, especially for children. “The need is great but the workers are few.” Anyway, that’s what my dad says—he is proud of me so far and we both believe this is a noble cause for my future career, but is it a pipe dream? My father is just barely scraping by keeping me in my private high school. My school is college preparatory and I have a 4.0 but he says he may not have the funds for me to attend next year. If, I can get at least two years of this school underneath my belt I will have a greater chance of becoming more eligible for scholarships later on. Your own scholarship information says, less than 30% of students in the bottom 25% of income attend a four-year college, and more than half of those who do enroll don’t end up graduating. I don’t want that to be me! I have a dream of becoming a doctor!! Honestly, when I read that I got really depressed. I am one of those low-income kids you are talking about---my father lost his job from my mother dying because he had to stay at the hospital with her (Leukemia) and couldn’t travel, then Covid came and he couldn’t get it back. Life has been extremely hard for us the past five years. My father grew up in a poor neighborhood in East Los Angeles, went to Roosevelt High and only knew about universities from looking at them out the freeway car window so he can’t help me through this process. I don’t know even know how much your scholarship is but I will take whatever I can get to pay my tuition so far. Unfortunately, for me the high schools where I live are bad---even if I was put into the advanced classes I still wouldn’t get the education I deserve, nor are they safe. Right now, in my personal life I am working to maintain my 4.0 which is extremely challenging. I’m also on the football team but with all the demands it’s difficult. A lot of the kids don’t talk to me because my family doesn’t come from money but I do have a great small group of friends who lift each other up every day and we all care for each other like the best of friends. I am also a volunteer for a different charity organization every year—this past year was “Wells of Life” which builds wells in Africa so people don’t die from polluted water. Also, in my personal life I am trying to build up my confidence in the world by helping other kids. Nothing beats building confidence like helping other people—I learned that finally because I really needed that myself after mom passed and dad with some of his friends helped me get out of my depression regarding that. Someday, I am going to cure Leukemia and when I do, I’m going to remember all the people and organizations that helped me along the way—including Olivia Vada Camacho. Thank you. Tyler

Hi, name name is T-Greg. Bro, my no nonsense survival guidelines will have you conquering school before you know it : 1. Join a club that meets right before lunch so you can always get out early to eat. This will make your lunch time longer and more satisfying. Also, buying lunches for your friends ahead of time will also make you a VIP. 2. Partner with the smartest kid in the class for the best group project grades. 3. Make friends with an Assistant Principal: It will save your but. 4. Make friends with tough kids in school: This buys you protection. 5. Tutor the cutest girls in class for the best looking prom date later on. 6. Use tutoring APPs for hard subjects--they will save you in a pinch. 7. Give yourself a nickname before anyone else does--and you know why. 8. DO NOT talk about Roblox or Animae to your friends or the opposite sex or wear superhero shirts to school as your social life will be ruined BEYOND repair. 9. Throw a pool party for instant popularity--must have popular kids there though. 10. Finally, watch the movie "Ferris Buhler's Day Off" for other tips. LATER DUDES!!!!!

My favorite Disney character is Piglet because I am so much like him! Forever, I was always the smallest kid in the group and because of that the bigger kids always teased me and they scared me very easily growing up. I was always afraid of ghosts, big dogs, getting into mischief and imaginable “boogie men” the older kids teased me with—especially at Halloween. And to top it off, my parents called me “The Piglet” because my face would always be smeared with food and there was always a terrible mess all about me. Just like those characters, my friends and I always wore the same clothes everyday because we were poor and always met in the wooded park to spend our playing time. Now, forward years later I started high school and everyone is too cool for Pooh at the movies. I look fondly back at those years because that is when my parents were happy before my mom died of Leukemia..I still had my innocence about me then. It's quite amazing how those Pooh movies emulated my very childhood. When my mother was sick, I thought the “Backson” or “heffalump” boogie creature was the one who got her sick that was described in the stories. It was the only way I could understand how my mother died. Years ago, when the last Winnie the Pooh movie came out in the theatres, I went to see the movie. It reminded me of earlier years when I was so happy before everything happened. Sometimes, we need to be reminded of happier times in life because for some reason we can only remember the bad ones a lot of the time; I don’t know why we do that? Well, I really need that scholarship for my private school I go to. It’s expensive, but it is the only thing that has gotten me out of the darkness of the past---that and the character of Piglet. Finally, when I get home late at night from practice or a game---especially when we lose, I’m in a funk, get ready for bed and read a little before sleeping but then I look deep in my closet and find my old Piglet stuffed animal. I take him out and put him right by my head and quietly fall asleep and it seems like all the bad gently goes away. Blessings.

What I love about math is that I can use it to figure things out, I can measure things and I calculate data to get to the truth of things. I can measure to build things like houses, I can measure to figure out space distance between planets or measure to figure how much money it will take to buy a dream car. Math does not tell you how to obtain your dreams but it gives you a measuring stick to shoot for. Right now I'm trying to use math to figure how a space ship can fly---I know there needs to be a anti-gravity device and a propulsion system --math can help me figure out at least in theory how it can work. It's fun! So, math can even be fun to try and figure out stuff like that. Recently, I saw something on television about tornado speeds. I figured out that the fastest tornado in history was in Oklahoma in 1996 at 302 MPH---but there wind speeds on planets over a thousand miles per hour, that's a 700MPH difference! That's crazy. The speed of light is 299 792 458 m /s -- Pluto is over 3.1398 billion away, now if that is true--It would take over 4.6 hours to leave the our solar system to get to Pluto. Rough calculation. So math can help you figure out things out timewise too--like if you build a flying saucer that can travel at the speed of light!

My father has been in social services most of his life and my mother was a teacher before she died a few years ago. That taught me that the greatest good is giving and not taking. My father saw this growing up in a tough neighborhood in Los Angeles---the few people who made a positive impact in his life stuck with him for a lifetime. This same impact is what I want to do with the world--I want to become a doctor but I also want to care for people in a social services setting while they are sick. I want to create a hospital that is not just caring for your health but has complete wrap around services for the entire family. This means housing while a relative is sick, this means mental and grieve care for those who need it, this means transportation services and even yes permanent work social services help for those who have to pay off exorbitant hospital bills. I mean REAL services with teeth to it and not just symbolic on the surface talk help. You never know how you are going to affect someone for the good or the bad--but I do know people have to stick together and make the difference, it's all a matter of will. One person can't do it alone but they can't give up either--the more people I can convince to have this type of hospital and care the greater our chance of success in the future. Imagine a place where the whole community comes together for help in one place; in one great effort. This scholarship is only one drop in the bucket for those who need money for school but what if the entire country for one week made just one contribution to this scholarship fund? What a great miracle that would make for so many students just like me. It is people are the greatest resource an organization could have. By helping make their educational dreams come true the impact is paid back a thousand fold throughout the years. It all starts with an idea---and my idea is helping to save people in perilous need and make miracles in peoples lives. I will do it--with your help so help me God.

Life long Learning is important to me because the mind is like a tool--you have to keep it sharp or it will rust up on you. Obviously, I plan to attend a university someday and continue my education after I'm done receiving a PhD by continual research, practical application and gathering more formal educational degrees. My father's friend has a PhD and keeps researching and applying for more degrees. He gives back by lecturing at universities and keeps inventing new ways to solve the world's problems and I want to be just like that. He says he is never bored and whatever is a hot topic in the world he is at the forefront of the research and discussion of it all. He has a full exciting life and he keeps up there with the geo-political trends of the day and I want to follow in his footsteps in the Medical Profession and also have a PhD too. I want to cure Leukemia and I want to lecture on the university circuit and someday teach to new medical students cutting edge techniques of helping people who have diabetes, cancer and heart conditions. This is obviously going to take a lot of work--but I'm prepared and dedicated to do it despite the lack of resources in my family. Sometimes, I can't even afford to do the experiments in science class as we are supposed to buy our own materials but I always find a way to get what I need and make the grade. I suppose the crux of my inspiration comes from helping others. The younger kids look up to me and I sometimes help them out with their assignments and homework. The more I discover about things in the world the more excited I become in finding out amazing things. The world and all the fascinating aspects of it are so big that one person can't know everything---but I want to! Is it possible to know everything about the world--I'm not sure but I want to. I read about Benjamin Franklin who invented the Lightening Rod, or Thomas Edison who invented the light bulb or Henry Ford and the assembly line for car manufacturing or the modern day phone. All these innovations and inventions actually changed the world because technology transfers over to every industry. Now, there's even 3D printing for homes and medical devices--the possibilities are absolutely endless to make this a better world and I want to be part of it. Maybe, someday because of our philanthropy and attitude to make things better we can avoid famine, drought and disease. Maybe, someday we can even eradicate wars. Now, that would be something to learn about. It is certainly something to strive for to put into use. I learned in history that WWI was called the "Great War" because after that we would never want another one. However, the new generations do not sometimes learn the wisdom of the previous ones and we suffer the consequences for that. So, If I can learn about helping humanity then we together might learn together to do this--pull our collective talent together and change the world. It's obvious that life long learning is the key to solving the problems we all face--if that's true and I think it is; then education should be absolutely free to all.

Higher education is important to me because it is the only way I can maximize my potential to give back in life to others. For example, if I can become a doctor I may be able to save thousands of lives in my lifetime, If I become an engineer I may invent a new product to withstand earthquakes for buildings that may save thousands of lives, if I become a professional athlete I may be able to have enough prestige to found a non-profit to help others who are handicapped. To live a fulfilled life you have to maximize what God has given you to your fullest potential and you can only do that with the power of knowledge that comes with a formal education. To become what you were really meant to be means becoming the most actualized human being and 99% percent of the time means attending a university. I look at my favorite heroes in history and they were all amazing people. Almost all of them had a formal education to prepare them for the journey and challenges they would face in their lifetime regarding their professional careers. For instance, I look at George Patton who basically won WWII for the free world and he had the learning disability of dyslexia but he put in the sweat, hours and toil to receive a formal education at West Point because he knew without his formal education he could never become the general he wanted to be. Another example is Elon Musk, who attended the University of Pennsylvania and it was there he knew he wanted to be a leader in the business world with new innovative products. He understood though that he needed a formal education to hone in his ideas, passion and vision and also get a feel of what was current in industry with his degree. Now, the question is: Do you absolutely need a higher education degree to become successful in life? No--not absolutely, but if you are wise you will hedge your bets and make sure you do. It's like this: Does one need to plant crops with rich soil, irrigation, fertilizer and advanced farming techniques? No, I suppose you can plant a few seeds here and there and hope there is enough rich soil and rainfall during the season to make sure your farm is successful. It was once said, "a fool and his money are soon parted." In like manner I say, "an ignorant man and his dreams are soon dashed." Higher education should not only be important to me but to anyone who wishes to change the world for the better on the behalf of all others. It benefits the individual, the community and hopefully the world. When I discover the cure to Leukemia--then many who have it will understand I could not have done without a formal education.

My biggest frustration in school was always not being able to get any of my questions answered, and the teachers hurrying to move onto the next subject no matter how well they taught so they can keep to schedule instead of really teach. However, if lessons are rushed and no questions are allowed to be asked then students are tested without understanding what was said then the grades will always suffer. That wasn't fair!! I got tired of that and made my parents help me---they hired a tutor to fill in the gaps for me. Unfortunately, I noticed many of my friends in class were not so lucky to get a tutor and their parents were just too darn busy to help them out and their grades reflected that. So I devised, "Tutoring Buddies" where the bigger more studious kids can get paid to help out the younger kids to help with classwork. It worked great in elementary school because the older kids got paid by parents to help out the younger kids. Kids could stay one hour extra after school to get tutored and the older kids got paid every day they helped out on the spot (nice incentive). Since the tutors were cheap and it allowed parents extra time to pick up their kids it was a win/win. However, in high school it didn't work because high school tutors wanted expensive wages to teach with $20 an hour or more! A group of kids and I petitioned the school district to send kids to tutor for free at the local library after school. High school tutors who were really good at math, science and language were especially sought out and they completed their service hours in addition to getting work experience down in looking for jobs during the summer later on throughout the city. It was successful and many kids benefited --there were high praises from parents everywhere and the standard hours were there Monday through Friday 3:30-6:00PM. Unfortunately, Covid came and the library was closed all during the later half of the year last year. I'm still trying to petition the district because they have re-invigorated the program and no one will get back to me. I get frustrated with adults in authority because it seems like every time something good happened it was always because of people complaining and petitioning and it always seems to be the same answer: "There are no funds for that" or "that's not possible right now" but they have no excuse because it was implemented last year and it worked! Sometimes parents can't afford to pay tutors $20 an hour but kids really need help. I'm still trying to improve things but it gets sad when no one seems to care--I still haven't got my answer from the library or the school district when the program is going to start up again. Say a prayer for me.

The one thing that gives me hope for the future is that "kindness" comes free. Kindness doesn't cost anyone anything--and it is just as good to give it than it is to receive it too. So, no matter what you can't lose and everyone benefits. It's the one currency that everyone has when they are born. Everyone is capable of it. They can pay kindness with some simple assistance, they can pay kindness with sharing a story or even simply giving a smile to someone who is feeling bad. Kindness is something even babies have when they play and smile back at you---this gives me hope for the future. It seems like when we get older we forget about this one human trait that is very valuable and then slowly over time seemingly not use it, and I don't know why? Why don't we help each other more often? Why don't we cut the lawn for an older person or take out their cans for them? Why don't we take the matts out of a stray kitten or puppy's fur and then help them find a home. Why? I think adults have a lot to learn from kids---we haven't learned to be self centered yet; we only know the love in a given moment. I think if the world would remember the currency of kindness and love and then would use it there wouldn't be any wars. I don't think there would be any problems in the world because the world would start acting the way we were actually born to be. Kindness, gives me the hope that I can possible get a scholarship for school. Kindness, gives me the hope that someone in the world cares about me, that my dad will find a job and that there will be no more bullies in school either. I told my father when I grow up that I would start a religion on kindness and love and he told me there was one already---that it also even included forgiveness. My father said people just have to believe in it and do it, that's all. I looked out the window to my room thinking what he said and I saw kids playing with each other in the park and then saw the television about a war in Ukraine. My father is right, we already know what to do. We just have to choose to do it: Kindness, love and forgiveness--this is my hope for the future.

One of my favorite books is "Animal Farm" by George Orwell. I love this story because it made me think harder about the world than I have ever done before. Other books I've read like where the "Red Fern Grows" makes you think about the individual but what if the world and the system of things makes decisions for you rather you making decisions about your life for yourself? What if those decisions are designed to hurt you instead of help you---what do you do then? Then I realized, this story is not made up nor is it about animals--it's about the lives of real people who already experienced terrible oppression. Today, in the news you see images of people suffering in the Ukraine and then I found out more about Russia's history after WWII and their government did the same to them and still do. People are being exploited and killed to prop up corrupt leaders in the world while those leaders live in luxury with plenty to eat. Everyone else in the story of Animal Farm--the worker animals, they suffer from brutal working conditions and live with barely anything. Is that what mankind does to each other? Do we just hurt each other and take what belongs to others for ourselves? I thought everyone was supposed to follow the Golden Rule? If we did, none of the awful things people suffer would ever happen---there wouldn't even be any crime! I'm tired of adults telling us kids that we don't know anything for our age because we're young. I can tell you that because we are young, we have a better sense of right and wrong than adults since we haven't learned to hurt each other yet: Who's the wiser now? History, has already told us who is: Kids.

Wow, this is an important essay and the answer is obvious: Make education free!! It's so simplistic and yet so powerful that it would change the entire system. I believe that education gives you opportunity but take that opportunity away and you take away someone's whole potential in life. What if Einstein could only have been a bricklayer? What if the man who discovered penicillin could have only been a fast food worker? What if YOU never had the opportunity to go to college--where would you be right now? Maybe you would be okay in life but did you reach your life's potential? Taking away an education is like stealing dreams from people--there should be no reason for it. Why does the profusion of knowledge cost money? Doesn't education have a long term social affect for the greater good? Then why do we put barriers to prohibit that? If I have an academic gift but I don't have the money why should that stop me? Furthermore, why should a university education cost $65,000 a year for a top school? Why? There's no real legitimate answer why it should be so expensive in my opinion. I read a famous story about a Swedish Immigrant's family who came to America and they worked hard and their only son was the first to get a university education. This young man's name was Dr. Vern Bengtson and he became a famous PhD from USC who was one of the top sociologists in the world and the leading Gerontologist in the world. His work and research on family dynamics, longevity and how to be happier in a deteriorating nuclear family in a modern complicated world was groundbreaking. I want to be just like that man when I grow up where my work contributes so much to the world but my family has no money for me to attend college so I write and compete for scholarships as much as I do my homework. I'm hoping that the rules and systems of things in the educational world will change enough by the time I apply for an education---I hope things will be more equitable and give me a chance to be somebody in this crummy world of poverty, war and hopelessness. Sometimes, I even feel let down by the world adults have created and it sometimes seems like the divide of the "haves" and "have nots" has grown even greater. I have bad dreams about how my life will be when I get older and I'm only 15 years old! My mother passed away three years ago and my father lost his job and to see that when I was only ten had a great affect on me in a terrible way. However, this is still America and this country has a Christian root to its political philosophy that says all are equal--so why not put that belief to the test with a free education for all! A free education "for the people --by the people."

A bold figure in history was the great General George Patton, who liberated Europe from the Axis Powers in WWII. General Patton had a learning disability called dyslexia, but that never stopped him. General Patton also had bold ideas to improve the army with new technology like tank warfare and even though the army time and time again rejected his ideas--he finally got the military to adopt his tank program just in time for the allies to fight in the war---otherwise only the axis powers would have had tanks in large supply during the beginning of the war. I would also like to note that general Patton was wounded in WWI and he could have retired then but didn't, and he also came up with new innovative ideas on how to use the Army Air Core in connection with ground troops for the first time as modern combat planes like the P-51 did not exist previously. In addition, many other generals discriminated against Patton because his ideas were too bold and brash; too risky--against the traditional methods of combat that was fought in the Great War a short time before. He was also from California and the Army elite did not come from California and therefore that prejudice worked against him. As a result, Patton would be given impossible missions to complete where as his superiors would expect him to fail and then they could politically dismiss him from combat leadership positions. Examples are the Torch Landings in North Africa and the Battle of the Bulge. Patton had the guts to speak his mind just like Churchill and warn the free world of what was coming when everyone was simply trying to appease dictators. A man who speaks the truth in today's world just like yesterday's history--will always be bold!

My wife died three years ago from Leukemia and it devastated our family financially and emotionally. In one short time, our lives were terribly transformed for the worse. My wife was a school teacher and I worked for a non-profit. When my wife Julie was diagnosed with the Leukemia it had already spread rapidly--obviously since she was hospitalized and couldn't work she lost her job. I lost my job because I had to take care of her and be at the hospital every day. Our son, who was just ten years old had no idea exactly what was going on and thought she would always get better--we all did. Our family went from two jobs to none--then the insurance companies wouldn't pay out over technicalities and our step relatives stole our family savings. You always hear about things like this with supposed family but you never think it would ever be you. All of a sudden, I find myself as a single father with a ten year old boy and passed on wife and were about to be homeless. Relatives didn't pay us back, the landlord stole our security deposit and no one would talk to us from church as it was made mostly from seniors who are far more aware of their mortality and were afraid cancer was contagious. Then covid came and I couldn't get my job back--they too were even laying off. I even lived in my car for a short while and went to other churches for handouts. Mike the former humanitarian and businessman down and out like George Bailey like the movie, "It's a Wonderful Life," that was me. It was hard for my son to see his father punished by the world for no reason. Well, a miracle happened and I received a stipend from social security which saved us for housing. Now, I am going to work for a new Christian non-profit that helps build clean water wells for people in Africa. The second miracle is that my son is now doing better emotionally as he was clinically depressed. Children can cruel about the comments they made about his mother passing away. Another miracle was him getting a huge scholarship for a private Christian school and it saved his soul, happiness and dignity. Which in turn brought me back to life for the fight against the world. There's no better cure for a broken hearted father than to see his only begotten boy smile again. However, during this whole time I couldn't find a job! I was told indirectly and by recruiters both that my education was dated? Huh? Not too mention I was over fifty now as well. I was told I would have to go back to school but with what money? In addition, I was too busy being a full time dad dealing with a depressed child. I someday want to get a degree in divinity, a certificate in health management or scholarship to go back to school and then help people and protect myself from something like this ever happening to me again. Anyway, I saw this scholarship and I figured it's worth a shot. If I don't get it then please, give it to someone who needs it badly and I will be happy. Sincerely, Michael Gregory.

The most inspiring book I have ever read is "Where the Red Fern Grows." I read the book when I was about the same age as the boy who owned the hunting dog. I liked it because it was really about me wanting a dog so bad but my father said a dog is a lot of responsibility. I never realized how much responsibility a dog could be or how attached an animal could be to its owner until you actually had one. This is what the young boy found out in the book when he finally bought his Coonhound. Most of all, I learned about courage and doing the right thing in the face of hostile circumstances. In the book there were bully kids, dangerous environments, people working against you and hard choices to make when faced with a challenge: Do you do the right thing? Or do you seemingly take the easy way out with a bad choice? I learned that a bad choice in life could haunt you afterwards in the long run if it seems like something with no consequences in the moment. For example, Rubin who was the bully kid kept trying to punish Billy because he had a better hunting dog. He lost a hunting bet and was so angry he tried to hurt Billy's dog with an axe. He ended up dying himself because he accidently fell on the axe trying to do that bad thing. The book kind of scared me because kids at school do bad things just like bullying, the story became so real to me. It made me think about consequences and every time someone did something bad at school it was a big, terrible commotion that hurt everyone's feelings and even ended up with some people leaving school.

The biggest problem facing the world right now is poverty, disease and starvation! We live on a relatively small planet fast approaching 9 billion people. Already, third and formerly second world countries including1st world nations' resources have citizens suffering more deaths, disease and a lower standard of living because we are lacking sustainability for quality living for the future. This is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off in the worst way in the future because it will cause nations to go to war over natural resources like Japan in WWII, China with Tibet or Russia with Ukraine, and it will cause nations to steal from each other and international companies to compete with each other in terrible ways ending in diplomatic crisis. This crisis, which is already peaking reminds me of a movie called, "Soylent Green" where people had no food, slept outside because of no housing, and no access to medicine was a frightening wakeup call--unfortunately, that reality already exists in so many parts of the world. Have you ever been to Mexico or India and seen this for yourself? SOLUTION: We have to find new ways of affordable but decent housing, access to better, cleaner water and healthy food, education, and finding new ways of new and affordable energy for sustainability for the future. No longer can nations think about just doing for themselves, we must work together instead of against each other for the equity of the entire world. Otherwise, the wars will get worse, the famines will become starker, the nations will act renegade against humanity trying to horde for just themselves ending up in a global catastrophe that will nearly wipe out the human race! I don't have a crystal ball but I can tell you the writing is already on the wall.

When I was younger--my mother passed away when I was ten. Then, my grandfather passed away a year later. The only thing that mattered to me was football and my family. I found out the world does not stop for you when terrible things happen---it doesn't even slow down for you to get better. You have to keep going to school, you have to keep playing on your team because they need you and I had to keep strong for my dad who was broken hearted like me. I had to remind him about mom being in heaven, and I had to remind him there was no pain there either as my mom was very sick. My determination was to be successful at everything I tried--to be the son that my mother and father could be proud of; that God could be proud of. My success was going to be part of the healing that my parents would need in heaven and on earth so that the bad that happened in our lives would no longer be affecting us like it did. I tried so hard and achieved a 4.0 GPA which I never done before, tried so hard in football and we won the league championship which never happened before. AND I was beginning to see my dad smile again for the first time after three years as he was so proud of me which meant my mother was smiling down on me too. The insurance companies did not pay out the money they owed us, both my parents lost their jobs, relatives stole our life savings and we didn't know how we were going to survive. When you're staring at a death in the family and financial crises then you have to go deep into your own spirit and tell yourself that a little bit of faith and a lot of effort will have to take place but that miracle of recovery is waiting there for you after all. My strategies, skills, and techniques I employed to overcome the obstacles between I and my goals was nothing complex or even consisted of great planning: It was sheer determination. To keep forging though the darkness and pushing away any thought of giving up for any reason. Since, I am only human I too had days of feeling defeated, days of lingering frustration and sadness but then I would shake that off and would try even harder the second time around. I would try harder for my grades, I would try harder to make the plays that counted on the football field and I would try harder to find ways to make my dad smile again. Through all of this, I started to see the successes and the blessings pile up. God was still good even though I did not understand why He let certain things happen. I had to give up those thoughts and just accept that God has given me everything I would ever need to accomplish anything I want. He's already given me the victories that my family needed for our happiness despite the world's hardness. Despite this world, my memories of my mother and grandfather were so profound that they left me with such a powerful influence that their memories with God's spirit in me had actually prepared me for the rest of my life and I didn't even realize it. I am going to be a doctor someday--and I'm going to help people get well. For those who leave this earth before us--they may not be here exactly with us but they're definitely not gone.

My mom passed away from cancer three years ago. I want to go to medical school, become a doctor and find the cure for Leukemia. In modern medicine we have a system that treats the symptoms for management of cancer but not finding the cure. Treating the symptoms only prolongs the disease which people die from later. If we look at the human body's immune system, we should find ways that would use our own body to better fight the disease on our own. People forget that radiation kills healthy cells as well as bad ones and I have an idea of creating an international hospital that represents all the continents of the earth to find the cures for all the cancers on the earth into one state of the art facility. It will be funded by the World Health Organization (WHO) from the U.N. and will also look at the best preventative measures for cancer by studying foods, ecological systems, exercise, sleep, diet and others for a wrap around cancer preventive lifestyle portfolio that can be customized for people around the world. I think Benjamin Franklin once said, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." To this day no one really knows what causes cancer--and to this day we have different ways of treating it but not really curing it outright. I don't want to be famous; I don't want prestige: I just want to be successful at establishing this place because big things always start out with small beginnings. Someday on the ground breaking ceremony of this place I want it named after my mother who tirelessly gave her all to others even while she was sick. My mother's name was Julie Bengtson Gregory, but I simply knew her as, "Mama."

My study strategies include proven methods for raising your grades! I'm calling these strategies "Tylerisims." First of all, get plenty of sleep as it does no good going to bed late and spending the rest of the next day in a fog, and obviously it's terrible for studying and retaining information if you're tired. Secondly, always study with students who are better than you in a given subject as they have a way of explaining things better student to student than many adults. Thirdly, always find a tutor you can count on when the time comes. Sometimes, you may not have enough time to figure things out as you have so much work--a tutor is a life saver--especially when you can call them at any given moment of the day. Fourth, sit in front of the class as you are more likely to get your questions asked in a large classroom when the teacher does not have time to talk after class. Once you're out of the classroom that opportunity becomes lost not to mention that you can hear everything better when explained up front. Fifth, know how to fight for your grade when you have a good reason to challenge. So many times, your grade will depend on a few points between an "A" or "B" so be prepared to be a student! Sixth, so much of work depends on good writing and the way you become a good writer is by reading more and difficult books and building up your grammar and writing skills to make this happen. Finally, seventh: Always have someone you trust look over your work before you turn it in--so many mistakes can be fixed before you do. Remember, seven in the Bible is the number that stands for perfection and completeness.

I love nature because it is so different and beautiful everywhere you go! If you go the mountains you see flowers and forests that you don't see anywhere else. If you go to the beach you see different tides and beach life in the tidepools you don't see anywhere else. Going to the desert, to the grasslands, to the arctic, to the plains, to the valleys or to the jungles there is a new and different canvass painted by God's hand and no two places are exactly alike on earth. The entire world it seems was made for our enjoyment and wonderment. I have seen things people wouldn't believe: I have seen the bioluminescence glow blue in the high tide at sunset like a brushstroke across the sea. I have seen lightening strike the tallest trees, alight them on fire and then slowly go out in the rain like a torch in the night. I have seen the eye of a grey whale look right AT ME from a rising crest of whitecaps. People in cities don't stop to notice nature long enough to appreciate its beauty in their hurried lives. Have you just ever sat by the edge of a lake at dusk quietly to hear the bullfrogs echo each other? Or notice the buzz of the dragon fly go by in its beautiful metallic green, blue or red just skimming above the water. Or hear the birds call to each other in the heat of the noonday sun? We go to the beach every summer--and to earn our appreciation of God's work we pick trash for about twenty minutes before we felt worthy to enjoy the surroundings. It all started one day when we found so many cigarette butts in the sand and it truly broke our hearts.

In life, there are many pitfalls and bumps along the way. How we handle those setbacks is the difference between being "Confident"--or not. I've learned with every setback there is a learning process and discovering something new on how to reach our goals is a another step closer to success-- as confidence is DEFINED by success. For example, when I first started football at school I was being clobbered by guys bigger and stronger than myself on the line. Then, through that learning process I learned how to bring down the biggest guy by grabbing him on the shoulders and pulling him down with me instead of merely blocking him which never worked. The coach was ecstatic because the other opposing lineman would trip up over us and fall down too. So, here I am as the smallest kid playing defense bringing down every time three bigger guys all at once allowing the quarterback all the time in the world to throw touchdowns. Our defense was the best because of me and we won the league championship last year. Whoo! Hoo! So, everything in life is the same way: (1) learn from your setbacks, (2) apply, modify and adapt what you learned, and (3) be successful and let your confidence soar as a result! In this simple three step way you may have noticed there is no giving up. You repeat this process until you get the results you want and nothing beats building up confidence and being more confident than the successful results of your hard earned efforts. You're gonna get knocked down. You're gonna lose some battles, you're gonna feel some aches and pains along the way and you're even going to feel like giving up on some occasions--but don't! The victory will be just that much sweeter.

I have found the meaning to life! (1) Do something important for OTHER people in your life and it all comes back to you! I discovered that when individuals do things just for themselves then nothing is genuine in their lives and when nothing is genuine you really find yourself alone: Your friends aren't genuine, your spiritual life isn't genuine, your work life isn't genuine and even your goals aren't genuine. In other words, all the love that someone can gather around them through genuine giving is completely missing--because that love does not exist in your life coming back to you. Look at Scrooge in the story of the Christmas Carol--nothing was genuine--even though seemingly he had so much but it was all a mirage and all emptiness; no one to share it with. Conversely, if you look at the life of Mother Theresa, she had nothing of her own as she dedicated her life to others but when she died an entire nation to whom she was a foreigner to made her a NATIONAL HERO! Millions paid tribute! She wasn't even the same religion in a nation that shows intolerance to foreign beliefs. So, how did that miracle of millions of people of a different religion come to love a frail, little old lady who was not even born a citizen of that nation? By true giving through genuine love for others. She found the meaning of life through her faith and then practiced it to the utmost of her ability. She was indeed a very rich lady. Rich because she had many who loved her back for everything she did for a caste of people who were thought "throw away." We should all be like Mother Theresa or George Bailey in "A Wonderful Life" ..because it will be.

My mother died of Leukemia three years ago and that convinced me that I want to find the cure for that cancer. I am maintaining a 4.0 GPA that I worked very hard for. Because of this effort, I have a chance to attend a private school with a potential full scholarship! Spending all of our money to give my mom treatment in the hospital was all for naught. So, I want to find a full proof verified way to cure this disease! I want to go to John Hopkins Medical School and fight for a cure on the cellular level--the earlier you detect it the better the chance for curing someone. I see myself working with children, veterans, seniors and poor people who don't have the money to fight leukemia. In addition, I want to establish a foundation so people who don't have the ability to pay the medical bills (that's what happened to my family)who do not have to worry about receiving treatment. Someday, when I am established in my career I will be the head of a big university hospital and I am going to have the hospital donate at least 15% back into the foundation of all money it earns. If the hospital does not want to do that then I'll establish my own. No matter what it's going to happen. My father said we only have so many minutes on this earth and that we better make the best of the time God has given us ---He expects it! So don't let Him down.

I was ten years old when my mother passed away from Leukemia and my father had to quit his job to be with my mother in the hospital. My family's income went from a two incomes to zero and my mother was slowly dying. Then my grandfather died a year later and we lost our home and relatives never paid back the money they owed us--and the life insurance companies didn't pay out due to technicalities. In the long run we found out certain relatives and friends were nothing at all in terms of acting like friends or family. It was hard to see my father so depressed in such a short period of time--not to mention myself struggling every day in school as kids can be mean over these things to one another. But I owe our rebound story to God! We are Christians and all we have in this world are each other. We found a place to live and my dad had just enough in his retirement to borrow against. Because of our low income, I was able to qualify for a scholarship at the best private school in the county and worked so HARD to get my 4.0 to keep my scholarship. My dad has some great interviews coming up and I am now finally old enough to do a lot of things on my own. Truly, it is darkest in the middle of the storm but God always has a life raft to throw to you--and it's called grace. To me, that means only Jesus can take the worst of something in life and make some good out of it. He gave me back my father's smile, potential job, and a great school for my education and an understanding that death is not the end.

My experience with mental health has given me a deep understanding how much harder life can be for some people: For that reason, people must understand how to love them more so those mental health issues do not take away the good things in life that those people deserve like everyone else. The “pursuit of happiness” is a life mission that everyone deserves. As people, we have a tendency to compete with one another, i.e. whose got the best grades, who has more touchdowns, who has more money etc. When we step back and take a look at the big picture, we’re just hurting each other—we are slowly cannibalizing each other with our “watch out for number one” attitude in our social worlds. When we don’t help each other that’s what we’re doing. Everyone needs a little help and sometimes more than that. What is so wrong with a little kindness, a little patience, a little help and lots of love—nothing. I think if Ms. Hays had enough love from everyone around her, she would not have felt so lost. More love from family, from school children, from neighbors, from the mailman, even strangers just from everyone! There needs to be training of understanding of what these individuals are going through! Maybe if you walked in their shoes for a mile then people would know. Maybe people would instead go out of their way to help. My mom died when I was ten and she suffered severe depression her whole life stealing her joy away. None of us knew or understood how deep her pain was until the very end. Often, what most people would consider a typical setback in life was an almost impossible mountain for my mother to deal with. Instead of stigmatizing people with mental health challenges and competing with each other, we should just learn how to love them better with their conditions: We need the training and understanding—not them. The world needs to retrain its attitude and thinking for others not so fortunate. You don’t have to be wealthy; you don’t have to be an expert in anything, and you certainly don’t have to have any special knowledge to have kindness. This is a gift that God gave us to spread around and to take it back is a sin in itself. We have the answer already, all we have to do is live it.