Fellow Scholars and Community Members,
I wish I had more perfect news, sadly that is not the case today. In the recent events that have happened in the City of Richmond, the City of Pride and Purpose, there have been multiple shootings, one of which ended the life of a beloved community member, and another taken with a lack of my own knowledge as to how it happened. These losses mark a tragic moment in our community’s history for one of the fallen was a fellow Richmond High Student.
My heart has been so heavy since I have started college, and I, bewildered at the vast differences I have experienced at home and at college, have not been able to fully enjoy all that I wished. As a mentor, I hoped to enlighten the minds of those who I speak to and give them a drive stronger than my own to work harder than I have to be able to go to college. That is why I chose to stay so close to home, to stay close to my community, to help them with as much as I could, to remind me of what brought me to where I am today.
Unfortunately, all that I planned before I went to college, the ideas that I had, the knowledge I have now that I wish to share with my scholars in high school, all of that has remained an idea: a dream. Through my lack of effort I have not been doing all that have wanted since I have been here, my wish is to help my high school scholars as the various mentors I have had have helped me. College is hard, and I haven’t been updating my blogs as much as I should have been, sharing my experiences, both fruitful and exhausting.
For some it takes a reminder, to see what their dream is: mine has been all the scholars who are with me in the pursuit of a higher education: those both in high school and in college. As a community in whole, we cannot let the violence be the sole reminder, we cannot let it motivate us for a moment and let that moment pass saying we have to do something and do nothing: that is not what we have ever done. We have always come together after such tragedies to make our community better, to make our lives better. Scholars before me have gone through their hardships, and carried the knowledge they have to remind them why they try hard to achieve, to succeed and thus be a symbol of hope for those who do not believe they can go further in life than the position they are in and those who are well on their way to joining their goal of a better life.
My heart goes out to those who have been a victim of violence, of pain, and my highest respects to those who have changed their lives for the better and do so for others. Let every scholar know that they are in the best position to help another. Our community will pull through and rise.
