One time a friend needed help affording his study abroad, and I wrote about him here.
Now, I’m asking on behalf of one of my sisters’ friends.
Her name is Marta, and she is a freshman in college this year. She’s extremely intelligent, passed all of her Advanced Placement exams with flying colors, graduated high school with Honors and a 4.7 GPA, and was a model student. She’s helped me out in a bind, too, with Panthers’ games, and I can attest to her competence, ability, and work ethic- as well as her willingness to volunteer. I can also attest to her wonderful artistic ability and her beautiful laugh.
Unfortunately, Marta is not a U.S. Citizen. Along with millions of other young Americans in the same situation, Marta’s family emigrated from El Salvador to the USA when she was six years old. They were granted political asylum at the time, and her parents escaped the political turmoil at the time so that they could afford for their children a better life.
Except now Marta can’t afford a college education because, due to a combination of an unprecedented increase in the cost of college, the lack of scholarships available for non-U.S.-citizens, and the failure of the DREAM Act, her family cannot send her and she cannot get financial aid.
Though she was accepted into Chapel Hill, because of these circumstances, she was forced to decline attendance. Through extraordinary efforts of her guidance counselors, she has been accepted at Wingate University- but still she must pay to go.
You can read about her story and donate here.
I strongly believe in education for everyone, and Marta’s talent should not be wasted because her extraordinary circumstances have rendered her a citizen of the world and not a citizen of the United States of America.
I’ve donated, and I urge you to do the same.
(For transparency’s sake: Marta didn’t ask me to write this, and at the time of writing, does not know that I have.)
Below is an example of Marta’s artwork:
Traveler at the Edge 