I immigrated into the United States from Mexico when I was 10 months old, and have lived in the same small apartment in San Diego ever since. We moved into a seemingly nice neighborhood, but I would soon find out that it was a dangerous place to live in. Drugs, violence, and organized crime would be seen at all corners, and the many gangs polluted the areas with brutal violence against themselves, other gangs, and innocent people. Things seemed innocent enough, at least when I was small. My father abandoned my family when I was 5 years old, … [Read more...]

I come from two migrant parents who both did not attend college. The siblings I grew up with, because they took care of me the most, all had no interest in academics and a higher education. Because I had no encouragement for being academically successful, my whole elementary experience was a blur where I did not have any aspirations to be successful in school. My family all were academically poor, so I saw any goal related to being academically successful as an impossible dream. My neighborhood was a quiet one, although I felt as if I lived in … [Read more...]

Dear Trudy and Eric, I would like to start off by saying thank you for sponsoring me through the A Bridge for Kids foundation and granting me with this scholarship that was a blessing all year long. It makes me happy to know that there are kindhearted people like you willing to help me (and my family) have an easier year. When I received this sponsorship I asked for my very own lacrosse stick. The stick that I had been using previously was not mine; therefore I could not practice outside of school with it regularly. But with it, I could … [Read more...]

My name is Angel, I come from an American-Mexican family and I live in a one-bedroom apartment with my sister, aunt and 5 other people. My neighborhood is the place your mother tells you not to go, and my neighbors are the people she says you should not see. My own mother never warned me of these things because she became a drug addict when I was in kindergarten and ran off with a man. She came back a year later to kidnap my older sister and I. She hid us in the most dilapidated building I’d ever seen, in Tijuana, Mexico, with a different … [Read more...]

 “You are going to have a brother,” my mom told me. You could never imagine how these words changed my life.  My brother was born with Downs Syndrome.  He motivates me to succeed in life.  Like him, when I put my head into something, I accomplish it.  I saw my parents’ frustration when they would tell my brother to do something and he did not understand.  At that moment I told myself I would try to work twice as hard at school to make up for my brother’s incapacity. I started getting myself on top of things and I tried to understand … [Read more...]

My name is Sadie and I have been in 12 schools and lived in countless places. My parents were addicted to drugs and alcohol and split up when I was three. After my Dad left us my mother started to abuse my sister and drugs. Finally, we moved into a homeless shelter and after six months, my sister and I were placed in a foster home. After a year the foster family didn’t want us anymore, we were separated. I was alone, I ate alone and not one of my foster “parents” would speak to me. After a month, I said “God if you’re real, find me a home … [Read more...]