Howard-Woods College Education
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Friends.
Due to dreadful circumstances in my personal economy, my son's education at The New School in NYC is in jeopardy and the savings for my daughter's continuing ed has been depleted. I wrote on my FaceBook timeline asking friends to help me find more scholarship funds through companies they are affiliated with.
My son has worked hard to be in his college in the city he finds so inspiring. Half of his tuition and fees have been scholarshipped, and we used a small loan to get him through his first semester. During this time he got a job and as he finishes his second semester he is on the Deans List and he has earned an internship and another scholarship. I am only broadcasting this to express what a good investment he is and how other institutions have believed in him enough to back him financially at this school. He is doing well by them.
Even so, I am unable to continue the payment plan on my end as my savings have been drained by my job loss in October and damages to my mortgaged rental property sustained by the evicted tenant over a year ago. While I was pouring money into rehabing my rental property my income suddenly disappeared when the funding for my project disappeared.
My daughter and I have cut back on many things during this time and I have been getting help from my family just to keep up.
I am currently sending money to his school through the mail, but it is not enough to sustain the per month requirement that will pay off his spring semester at the allotted time. They have frozen his fall registration due to insufficient payment.
He and I sat down together and applied for the maximum amount of school loans, including loans for extenuating circumstances and his FAFSA forms reflect this as well. My former employer is helping me with the documentation for that to expedite our application as my tax filing has been held up by complications in my withholding and truant forms relating to my HSA.
I took a class in order to get a better, sustainable job and I start working second shift in a healthcare facility in April which will enable me to get a second job in the morning or take another class.
I have always stressed to my children that it is important to ask for what you need. Something that is very difficult to do and hard to live up to myself. It took watching my son work so hard to achieve something he truly wanted and my daughter persevere in our downsized economy, to have the courage to ask for help on their behalf.
I watched my son make all the right decisions and work so hard to have his name be awarded acceptance and scholarships only to see his anxiety as this education he has so worked for and looked forward to, slips though his fingers or hangs on a thread that insures he will owe more for his BA than I have owed on all the properties I have been paying for my whole life.
Organizer
Pam Kellett
Organizer
Roanoke, VA