Breaking cycles and opening doors: Destiny’s story

College Success Foundation’s Governors’ Scholarship for Foster Youth has paved the way for more than 500 kids in foster care to attend college to date. I know this because I am one of the 500. In fact, I was part of one of the very first cohorts of Governors’ Scholars in 2002.

To say I am honored to be here would be an understatement. I currently work as a teacher in the Spokane area. I hold a bachelor’s degree in applied developmental psychology, and two master’s degrees in criminal justice and emotional and behavioral disorders. My husband and I are attempting to raise two tiny humans, and most days I think we do all right.

I’m constantly curious, passionate, and an “all in” person. I’m independent and have convictions. I’m not easily deterred, and I know what I bring to the table. If I were a penny, I’d like to think I’d be a shiny one. It wasn’t always that way, though.

I was born to a teen mother and absent father. My mother was in full-blown addiction by the time I was 2, and the first time I was removed from her care I was 3. I was capable of getting myself to school by kindergarten, and that’s when the world changed for me.

My teacher said I was smart. No one had ever said anything to me like that. People told me I had pretty brown eyes, was a tiny little thing, and talked too much. But smart … smart was new.

School became my home. People saw me there. They encouraged me, they challenged me, and they implied I belonged. I hated summer break more than anything and counted the days until I could go back.

School became my saving grace. I learned there, I played there, and I was loved there. I was questioned more times than I can count about things that were happening in my house, but I knew better than to tell the truth.

I was very scared of my mother and worried that I would lose my stepfather—the person who saved me from my mother’s rage. I became the primary caretaker for my two younger brothers around the age of 8 and ran the household to keep the grownups happy so they wouldn’t be mad. When I was 14, my stepdad left, and I wasn’t sure how I could possibly survive my mother for another four years. I was more alone than I’d ever been.

While I entered my freshman year of high school an A+ student, eventually the stress became too much. I failed a class, I attempted to take my own life, and I started to let the anger seep in. I knew the drill: go to the counselor’s office, smile, nod my head, and assure them everything was okay.

A few days later, my mother disappeared for three days, and I pulled a drawer open at home and found heroin. My brother had been suspended from school, so I had to skip school to stay home with him. It was too much. I went to my counselor’s office, turned my own mother into child protective services, and entered foster care.

Over the next four years, I packed my belongings in black garbage sacks 13 times, mostly on a moment’s notice. After a difficult talk with a trusted teacher, I once again realized that school was my way out. For kids like me, it was the great equalizer.

I knew if I finished school and went to college, for the first time in my life, I could have something that no one could take away from me.

I attacked the next three years with gusto and even finished my last two years with a 4.0. College became a non-negotiable. I knew people thought I was dreaming too big, and I had no idea how I was going to pay for college, but I knew I had to find a way. 

I became a TA for my high school counselor, and one of my jobs was to file all the scholarships that came through her office. I applied for every single one. After asking my caseworker for a letter to prove my status as an independent student, he handed me an application for a new scholarship for foster kids.

I applied to a number of colleges in Washington, and in true foster kid fashion, I was convinced I wasn’t going to get in to any of them. Despite my conviction that this was right for me, my self-worth was not exactly intact. But two days before winter break, I found out I was accepted to my top choice, Eastern Washington University. A few months later, I learned I had been selected for the College Success Foundation’s Washington State Governors’ Scholarship for Foster Youth.

CSF saw my value … the tarnished, beat up old penny … and believed I was just as worthy as the shiny one.   

During my four years at Eastern, CSF became like a family to me. They checked in with me regularly and sent me care packages in the mail. My junior year, they asked me to attend a summer program and mentor incoming freshman who were fellow Governors’ Scholars. I’d never been naïve enough to think I was the only foster kid in the world, but I’d also never met any.

Participating in this program changed my life. Not only was CSF taking me on to pay for my schooling, but they also connected me with other foster youth and gave me a platform to encourage them to dream even bigger than I did. The program gave me my first real sense of belonging outside of school. For the first time in my life, I could say something like, “When I visited my mom in prison …” and not silence a room.

Thanks in large part to CSF, I graduated with a bachelor’s degree in developmental psychology from Eastern and zero student loan debt. My four years at Eastern paved the way to grad school at Washington State University.

The door to a better life was opened, and the weight CSF lifted off my shoulders by paying for school gave me my first advantage in life. I’d fought a lot of uphill battles, but lack of resources didn’t have to be one of them.

I would eventually find my way back to the classroom where I now work with troubled students as a behavior specialist classroom teacher. It’s my humble honor to give back to a system that gave so much to me. 

Thank you doesn’t seem like enough when it comes to my gratitude for the College Success Foundation, the Washington State Governors’ Scholarship for Foster Youth, Governor Locke, and all who are making dreams come true for kids like me, but it’s warranted nonetheless. Your support means more than you could possibly know. It’s hope, it’s freedom, it’s breaking cycles, and it’s opening doors. Thank you.