Profile in Determination:Teen Goes from Homeless to Harvard

via the Today Show – Dawn Loggins is a high school senior. In the fall, she’ll join hundreds of other freshman at Harvard University. But Dawn won’t be just any Harvard freshman. The North Carolina teen received her acceptance letter after being evicted from her home, abandoned by both her parents, and taken in by a team of caring adults from her school in the city of Lawndale. Dawn worked as a custodian before and after school and studied diligently, sometimes by candlelight. While helping her fill out college applications, one adult volunteer suggested she apply to Harvard as well; after all, she had the grades and the drive. The result was an acceptance letter.  “All we did was give her the basics she needed, but she did it with her brain, her determination and nobody can take credit for that except Dawn”, said the teen’s job supervisor. Dawn will work while at Harvard and apply for scholarships. Her principal has also set up a fund for those who wish to help this amazing young woman on her journey from homelessness to Harvard. Here is the address for donations: The Dawn Loggins Uplift Fund, c/o Burns High School, 307 E. Stagecoach Trail, Lawndale, N.C.,28090.

What is most striking about this young woman is that she overcame incredible odds to succeed. And not one place in this story is there a mention of government intervention. “Progressives” and Democrats continue to try to convince us that the disadvantaged have no chance in life without government support. The idea that anyone should struggle or be tested is abhorrent to them. What they miss with that philosophy is that oftentimes success is the direct result of loss. It is the difficult circumstances in our lives that shape us, sharpen us and give us drive. They help us learn and use that knowledge to spur ourselves on to success. Too many Americans have been robbed of that gift by an overreaching government and well-meaning but enabling programs. Is that compassion? No. Compassion is what the fine citizens of Lawndale, NC exhibited when they rallied around Dawn Loggins and determined to take care of one of their own. They didn’t wait for a government program to help, they did it themselves. These are the people that we should be looking to as examples of how to weather these difficult economic times. This is how we used to do it before a massively unsustainable welfare system began bleeding the average taxpayer dry.  We took care of our own, provided for our own, marshaled our community resources to help those in need, without the government. Not only did it create better, for self-sufficient citizens but it created a sense of community. The greatest leaders in history have been people who came from difficult and sometimes seemingly impossible situations. It wasn’t the lack of trials in their lives that made them great men and women. It was precisely because of those trials that they became great. Dawn Loggins is proof of that legacy. She surely must have had days when she felt discouraged and sorry for herself. Who wouldn’t? But she didn’t set up camp in Sorrytown. Dawn recognized that hard work would be the key to her success and so did the adults around her. Says Dawn, “I felt like it would just be easiest if I gave up, but it was never in me to give up.”  Congratulations to Dawn Loggins, a true embodiment of the American spirit and a classy representative of womankind everywhere. Cheers, Dawn! America is proud of you.

Watch/read the Today Show report here and don’t forget to send Dawn a donation or encouragement.

Crossposted at kiradavis.net