Hero of the Week: Teacher Raises $130K to Help Abandoned LGBTQ Teen Head to College
The earth can be a dark and dangerous place, only selflessness has the ability to prevail in the almost heartbreaking
The world can be a night and dangerous place, only selflessness has the power to prevail in the most heartbreaking of circumstances. Whether it'southward putting some other life before your own, making someone else'due south dreams come up true, or paying forward random acts of kindness, everyday heroes are all around us. Every week, nosotros take the opportunity to celebrate the about boggling ordinary people from all over the world who make our little blueish dot a better place. Welcome to Hero of the Week.
Going to college was 18-twelvemonth-onetime Seth Owen's lifelong dream. He was e'er reading, learning, participating in extracurriculars and helping others whenever he could.
Photo Credit: Jane Martin/GoFundMe.
"I was the nerd in fifth class who walked around recess talking nigh how I wanted to exist an astronaut," Owen told NBC News. His difficult work started paying off, as college credence letters started coming in, including from prestigious Georgetown University. His teachers could non be prouder.
Back dwelling house though, things were far from peaceful or happy. In his sophomore year, his very religious family found out he was gay. "I was writing a paper and my decided to check my phone late in the evening," the Florida teen told NBC News. That night, his parents questioned him until the early hours of the morning.
In no time whatsoever, his parents sent him to a "Christian counselor" to undergo was amounted to conversion therapy, the medically debunked process of "converting" an LGBTQ private to heterosexuality. Of grade, it didn't work, just somehow Owen managed to convince his parents to allow him discontinue his "treatment."
A dedicated student despite his struggles at habitation
All the while, Owen's grades remained loftier and his academic participation exemplary. But things were becoming worse at home. He all the same had to nourish his family unit'due south church, were homophobia was rampant, open and aggressive. He didn't feel welcome. He didn't feel loved. He didn't feel safe. And when he asked his parents of could nourish a unlike church, they gave him an ultimatum: he could go on going to their church and remain at home, or he could leave the family home.
Worried for his well-being, he had to leave, and ended up sleeping on friends' couches. And however his grades were exemplary, and Owen even became co-valedictorian of his class. Merely Georgetown Academy would not alter its financial aid – even though Owen showed ample proof that he no longer had parental support or assist and yet was about to graduate with a four.61 GPA.
Teacher of the year
Photo Credit: Jane Martin/GoFundMe.
Jane Martin, a biology teacher who taught Owen during his freshman twelvemonth and mentored him through college plant out nearly his struggles. And she was non about to let a bright young mind endure, because his family did non understand him or love him. "Seth was just a kid that really stood out to me. He was super ambitious and was e'er trying to go in a higher place and beyond to make sure he could be as successful as possible."
Consulting with other teachers and students, she set up upward a $20,000 GoFundMe entrada, aimed at covering tuition cost for his first year. But Owen'due south story touched people and donations started pouring in. Owen, who was nigh to be forced t accept a gap year, couldn't believe how many people responded with messages of support, encouragement whatever they could spare.
Soon, in that location were $2,000 pledged. And then the $20,000 goal was reached, and fifty-fifty more people heard nigh his story, his pain and his drive for learning. Now, Owen is getting ready to move to Washington D.C. within the month to start classes at Georgetown, where, thanks to kind strangers and the back up of his former teacher he volition be able to encompass tuition – at press time, the fundraiser had totaled nearly $130,000 in pledges.
Source: https://www.goalcast.com/teacher-raises-130k-help-abandoned-lgbtq-teen-head-college/