In our Live Your Dream Plus program, we follow up with our awardees for up to three years, serving as mentors to provide ongoing support. Our awardees know that there is a network of women who are ready to help in any number of ways. It also allows us to hear and share the good news about their lives, and how they are succeeding in living their dreams. Over the past few months, we’ve enjoyed good news from a number of past award recipients from 2022 and 2021 (pictured above are the 2022 recipients, L-R: Lourdes, Shabria, Khadijah, Portia).
Last Spring, one of our 2022 Live Your Dream awardees, Khadijah, was named the recipient of the 2023 Dallas Herring Achievement Award. Wake Tech President Dr. Scott Ralls said “Khadijah represents the best of what we’re about at community colleges – hope, opportunity, pathway to future opportunity through jobs and further education, but it’s also about the inspiration we see every day in our community colleges that are brought to us by the students like Khadijah who overcome adversity and challenges that we may not have imagined.” Khadijah currently works at Johns Hopkins as a psychiatric nurse.
June brought us news from Bertha, one of our 2021 awardees, who graduated from Durham Tech. When we met Bertha, she was studying at Durham Tech while working full-time and raising two children. She is also the first in her family to graduate from college. Durham Tech also nominated Bertha for the 2023 Governor Robert W. Scott Leadership Award.
Two more of our 2022 Live Your Dream Awardees also shared recent good news. Shabria bought a house at the end of June and her daughter graduated from kindergarten. She is also working towards getting her MBA, while holding down a full-time job in health care. Mom of 2 Portia recently began a new nursing job at WakeMed, and will be starting classes to pursue her BSN degree.
We are currently accepting applications for the 2023 Live Your Dream Awards, and this year we will be looking for six recipients, each of whom will receive a $2,000 award. We hope you’ll consider donating to help support women like these, who are ready to live their dreams. Learn more about donating here.