Autumn Smith

When I fist heard about the Simon Scholar program, it began to think I couldn’t possibly become a Simon scholar, I don’t have the GPA for it. When I began my research on the program I realized that it was for those people who has been thru things in life and has overcome powerful obstacles, and that when I thought to myself wow this is for me.
My life was not easy my family life was not always great. My family has financial problem. As a teenager who wants to have fun and hang out with friends it becomes difficult to have to always reject invitations because of lack of money. In this day and age there is hardly any way to have fun without having to pay. There were also those days when I would wake up and have nothing to eat. I would have to watch my younger brother starve along with me, and I felt so bad because I hated having to go thru that and I hated even more watching him go thru starvation. There are also bill payment problems. I remember we didn’t have water in our house for several months because my mother was unable to pay the bill. We had to continually buy gallons of water and refill them over a relative’s house because of this. Also our home that we have stayed for six years recently almost went into foreclosure. I was going to have to change schools and start my year ever if it wasn’t for my church, Kelly Chapel UMC. One day I had to sit and think about the problems that I have financially and realize there is nothing that I can do about the situation until I am capable to earn a living for myself and my family. I am a person who doesn’t like to show my emotions and what is going on in my life and for my families sake I find a way to put a smile on everyone’s face, because I know that what we are going thru will not last forever. This gives me drive to become a better person and to become a success so in the future nobody would have to struggle the way that I do.
I also have another struggle that I still to this day have problems over coming. At a young age I dealt with abandonment issues. I lost my grandparents at a young age and it left a hole in my heart. I felt that they had so much to teach me and never will know. My father was never there for me. At a young age I remember crying to myself because my father told me that he didn’t love