Personal Narrative: Running The Towpath Full Marathon

My mother has raised my brother and myself as a single parent since the divorce. She has also taken on the responsibility of taking care of her mother after some major health issues depleted her ability to care for herself. Our family has struggled financially with this one income issue causing difficulty to provide just the basic needs. My brother is currently attending Florida Atlantic University, and although my mother helps as much as she can, he has to obtain loans just to survive. I know that my mother will not have the ability to help me through college, so I am doing whatever I can do to eliminate the financial road block that is standing in my way to reach my career goal. Receiving a scholarship would help facilitate my ability to focus on my education instead of focusing on the ability to pay for

Now that I’ve covered why I financially need this scholarship, let me explain why I have earned it. This past year has been a whirlwind. I ended my junior year with 34 credit hours, 20 of which were earned second

I understand that my family and I are not living below the poverty line or fighting over bus fare, but this scholarship will still greatly benefit me. When my sister filed the FAFSA, she was not given an extraordinary amount of money. She had to take out loans to pay for her education. My family and I cannot afford to take out any more loans. In 2014, we lost our house due to foreclosure. For two years, every penny we earned went to our savings account to save up for a house. When I was fourteen years old, I had saved up five-thousand dollars for college. I decided to give the money to my parents in order to buy our house. I am a senior in high school, and I have not managed to recoup my money. Meanwhile, my parents are tied down to a thirty-year mortgage. In addition, my grandfather, who lives in Mexico, has been diagnosed with depression. My parents have been sending money over there in order to pay for his care and medicine. Trying to find the right treatment for him has made money a bit tight in my household.

I think I would be a good recipient for this scholarship. Due to my academic achievements and because my parents moved to the United States to give their children a better life and education. With this, my parents have instilled in me a dream to graduate college and become successful. My mother is always telling me how she wants me to do something great with my life, and she keeps on encouraging me to get through college even if money is tight. She reminds me and my siblings that we can never give up and that we have to push forward because she has sacrificed so much so we can be where we are now. I am extremely grateful to Rich Mountain Community College for providing concurrent college classes at Wickes/Cossatot River High School because it gave me a great opportunity to get ahead in college. I currently, have 53 hours, and I currently hold a 3.2 GPA this semester. This has not been easy, since I work part time, but it does show me I am capable of doing it. With personal commitment and determination, I know I have the power to excel in my all classes.

I intend to use this scholarship to help pay for my tuition and books at the Southern Arizona University of Phoenix- Online. I would like to be considered for this scholarship because I have no financial help from my family. This means that I have to be able to pay for college on my own because of the fact that my father is no longer in my life, and my mom has my other siblings to take care of. My father is no longer in my life because he now lives in Mexico with his other family. I don’t have financial help from him because he has a wife and six other children. My mother would like to be able to help me, but she has two other children she’s taking care of by herself, and she has to prepare for my sister's graduation next year as well as mine this year. I plan to get a job after I graduate to help pay for the expenses of college, but since I am going online the expenses of college are going to be a lot less than if I were to go on campus, this is the main reason I am planning to go online, and to take a lot of the stress of being totally alone off myself because I will only be twenty minutes away from my family instead of an hour or two.

Going to college has been a dream of mine growing up. I am the first ever in my family to go to college but figuring out how to pay for it has been a challenge. I desire to achieve my academic and career goals and this scholarship can help me succeed in my journey.

I have come from a struggling background. My parents never attended college and my mother has been the sole provider for my family for many years. I have watched her struggle trying to provide for us and I determined long ago that I would strive to do more for my future family than what she was able to give us. My dreams required that I attend college. It is because of the financial hardship my family faces every day that the financial burden that comes from attending college rests solely on my shoulders. Although I am employed, I do not make enough money to pay for the cost of living and my school expenses. My goal is to become an attorney and I do everything in my power to attain that goal. I excel in all of my classes and have become a leader on my campus and in my community. I rely on scholarships like the Silas Purnell Scholarship to recognize these attributes in me and with the help of this award I will be able to take my last step in my path of earning my baccalaureate degree and making my goals my

Although I live in a two parent household, I am only one of two college students in my family. Currently both of my parents are employed in Social Services, and unfortunately they do not have a lot of discretionary income to contribute financially to my college costs. I qualify for a partial Pell Grant, but I will still fall short of the total cost to attend Southeast Missouri State University for the 2016-17 school year. In order to avoid taking out a significant amount of loans, which will leave me in debt I have worked hard in the classroom to maintain a 4.0 GPA to qualify for merit based scholarships. Receiving The Joyce and Thomas H. Stanisic Memorial Scholarship will allow me to focus solely on my education rather than financing my education throughout my sophomore year of college.

“Whoa, whoa! Where is this taking us, where, where?” I said as my heart was beating as fast as a runner who finished the Boston Marathon. I was hiking with my family a second ago, and now I am through a wavy transparent wall that made me feel like I was heading through Platform 9 ¾ in Harry Potter. I suddenly was flying through a golden sky that glistened like the sun hitting the ocean. Gracefully I did flips and cartwheels in the air while gold ribbon followed me like ducklings following their mother. Milliseconds later I landed in a grassy field. Cows were harvesting crops and cooking dinner. Straw hats aligned their faces, with brown corduroy overalls splattered in dirt. They smelled like a fertilizer company on a hot summer afternoon.

As my senior year comes around, it has become more real to me that I have to take charge of my future. I deserve and need this scholarship just as I need oxygen to breathe. Being the first in my family to attend college or even have the idea in their head means I’m on my own to discover what to do to get into college and how to come up with the means. I

My mother received a high school diploma and was not able to attend college due to the fact that my grandparents needed help financially. She had to take on various responsibilities at a young age and could not afford a college education. My mother then decided to go back to school years after she gave birth to me and enrolled in a medical program where she would later become a Certified Nursing Assistant. My mother’s strong motivation and determination enabled her to make something of herself. Her perseverance motivated me to aim high for my goals and succeed. Although she had obtained a job, she still does not have the financial means to send me to college. Therefore, receiving a scholarship or any type of grant whether it is twenty dollars

I finished the Lone Star half Marathon in 2 hours & 37 minutes. Not exactly my best time, but I still have a attitude of gratitude! During these 2 hours and 37 minutes one has plenty of time to reflect on their life, and what has transpired to get them to this very moment. I never dreamed that I would be ruining at all especially in a half marathon. I am grateful to God that I am able, healthy and most of all SOBER! You see 7 years ago this month I finally decided to give my will over to God. You see I was a long time drug addict. My drug of choice was Methamphetamine! God delivered me of a severe addiction! As well as , smoking cigarettes and many more self destructing behaviors that I had become accustom too. God gave

It was a frigid and cloudy day at Calabasas High School when the cross-country team agreed to lift weights. During my visit to the weight room, my assistant coach and co-team captain informed me that they needed to accrue money for Team Something Yellow in order to compete in the 2017 Los Angeles Marathon. I exclaimed, “Should we put on a 5K run and walk on campus”? “Absolutely”, yelled my co-team captain Emily. Our assistant coach Claudia said, “However, how are we going to administrate the event in a sparse amount of time? There is an immense amount of assignments to complete and I fear we will not entice enough competitors”. I asserted to both Emily and Claudia that the 5K will be successful only if we have exemplary collaboration skills.

Honestly, I was never the smartest student in school, but I've never failed or given up on my studies either. I admit I've made many mistakes and wish I had done a lot better to improve my chances at a good college. When I saw this scholarship was available, I knew if i'd I'd be able to less burdensome on my family. Both my parents work six days out of the week to help pay for all our living expenses, leaving me to take care of my younger brother. I am the eldest child in my nuclear family and I believe is my responsibility to accomplish greatness for my future. I want to be able to give back what my parents give to me everyday. I am so grateful, even if I don't act like it. This scholarship would really help me let my parents know that. It

I remember the game winning point in Van Horn Iowa. We Bump, Set, Hit.... It was a kill!. The crowd goes viral. It's 2016 and the Sailor Nation 7th graders are on there way to state!