Donate to help Jessica go to dental school

Hi, my name is Jessica Bennett and I'm fundraising for my first year of dental school. I'm entering the Class of 2028 this July at the school of my dreams, Tufts University School of Dental Medicine in Boston, MA. I need help to move across the country from California to Massachusetts and purchase school supplies like the mandatory laptop, scrub uniforms, and etc.

I've always been an independent first generation student because my parents and family are not able to financially support me. Throughout my undergraduate career, I learned to combat financial hardship by juggling multiple jobs, and I endured multiple periods of food insecurity– but despite the odds, I achieved my B.S. in Systems Physiology. I held on to that same tenacity when I began my master’s program. I was blessed to be able to arrange my class schedule in a way that allowed me to work part-time as a dental assistant and to Lyft rideshare drive to support myself. However, half way through my master’s program I was hit with the biggest financial crisis I have ever faced! First, in October of 2022, my car was stolen – meaning 50% of my already minimal income was stolen because I no longer was able to Lyft drive. This is around the time I began studying for the Dental Admissions Test (DAT) – and mind you, I earned the exam fee via Lyft driving so without my car there was no way I could earn the fee to reschedule it. I had to still study for the DAT amid this trial. To top it all off, a few months later I was involved in a freak accident while dog-sitting for a friend that severely fractured my right hand’s middle and ring finger . . . Pause. . . My dream is to be a dentist and I had just severely injured my dominant hand. That was a very scary moment for me. I underwent two reconstructive surgeries. The first to screw my phalange (finger) bone fragments back together and the second was a corrective osteotomy (because the bone was so fragmented that the doctors weren’t able to orient my ring finger correctly the first time). The accident took place in December 2022 and I was not able to return to my part-time dental assisting gig until August 2023. I was not eligible to receive medical disability insurance benefits (payment) because, in addition to my dental assisting and Lyft driving, I was also a Teaching Assistant and had been paid a small stipend every month to teach a few undergraduate physiology labs. In order to receive disability benefits, I had to be completely incomeless – and even though trying to live off of a student stipend in the San Francisco Bay Area should very well be considered incomeless, it isn’t. My plan to save for dental school had been destroyed.

However, I still went to class every day, taught my labs every week, regained dexterity in my right hand, wrote and won a grant for my master’s research, scored 93-95th percentile on my DAT (23AA/22TS), and aced my entire Master’s of Biological Sciences program!!!! I know I have the grit it takes to be successful in dental school and I’m sincerely asking for your help to make it there.

Want to watch my progress? Check out my Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@jessiebeedmd