Katrina Taylor

Katrina's mother died of complications from her drug addiction when Katrina was eleven, leaving her orphaned. Since then, Katrina has spent time on the streets and living with friends and relatives before finally being able to afford a place of her own recently.

In order to support herself, she has been working since she was in 8th grade, working her way up to a 40-hour-a-week job at Home Depot in addition to going to school. She has also been taking summer classes to make her schedule slightly more manageable, and has kept up an overall GPA of 2.95 during her time at Westside High School.

While work and school have prevented her from having much of a social life or participating in extracurriculars (outside of volunteering at her church), Katrina wants desperately to help others later in life by providing shelters and donation centers for people going through struggles like hers. Katrina's post-collegiate plan is to become a registered nurse before returning to school to train to be an anesthesiologist.

Marshall Schoen

Marshall spent time as a child in two abusive households, being subjected to emotional and physical abuse at the hands of two different step-parents. When he finally decided he had had enough and went out on his own, he found himself in another abusive – this time sexually – situation.

Through all of these traumatizing experiences, Marshall has carried a 3.5 GPA at Bellaire High School as well as maintained a job. Marshall developed a passion for theatre, particularly the technical side, while in high school and has participated in UIL competitions (and earned honors for his work) for the past couple of years.

He plans to major in education and return to Bellaire High to fill the currently-empty role of technical theatre director/teacher so that other young people will have the opportunity to explore all aspects of the theatre.

Luis Gonzalez

Luis never met his father, and his mother spent most of Luis' childhood working very hard and long hours to support him and his siblings, who at times were forced to live with their grandparents. Luis was physically abused by his grandfather and seen as a burden by the aunt who was often charged with his care.

Despite this, and a lack of emotional support from his mother, Luis continued to follow the example of his older sister, working hard in school while playing sports, volunteering, and working part-time at Jack in the Box. At various times throughout his childhood, he recounts that his family had their power and gas shut off, his sister was forced to leave school because she needed to work, and his mother and grandmother unexpectedly returned to Mexico.

As part of the Career Preparation Program, Luis worked full-time at Shell Oil in addition to working nearly full-time at Jack in the Box and going to school. After a confrontation with his mother shortly after her return from Mexico, Luis left his home and moved in with a friend's family.

Luis is now determined take his 3.78 GPA and 13 out of 453 class ranking at Stephen F. Austin High School to the University of Texas and graduate with a degree in engineering in order to make a better life for himself and his sisters.

Nernwon Kargou

Nernwon's father has refused to speak to her since 2007 because he sees her pursuit of higher education as a disgrace to him and his Liberian culture. Nernwon was born in Liberia, a country about which she can only remember civil war, death, despair, and being on the run.

The words of her 7th grade teacher opened her eyes to the promise of America, the chance to reinvent oneself, which did not make her father happy. As her academic promise continued to show, she began to realize her own potential and believe in herself. When she refused to enter into an arranged marriage because she wanted a different life for herself, it sealed her father's disapproval.

This has only continued to motivate her to succeed both academically (her 3.62 GPA ranks her 11th of 585 at Eisenhower High School) and in the numerous extracurriculars in which she participates and leads. Nernwon's goal is to get a degree in International Law after graduating from Brown and one day lead Human Rights campaigns for the UN.

Esther Friedman Blonstein Scholarship Award

Avery Gibson

Avery was born, unbeknownst to him, while his father was in jail (a place he has been in and out of his entire life). Later, Avery and his brother moved in with their father and his new wife, who abused them for seven years. Avery ran away from home three times before his stepmother eventually left his father, who then left Avery and his brother with their grandmother - who could barely afford to take care of them - so that he could continue his spiral into drug abuse.

After spending some time, post-Katrina, with his father's sister and her family of addicts, Avery moved in with his mother's sister in Liberty, where he was once again the victim of physical and psychological abuse in a drug-filled environment that he eventually ran away from. Finally, through a family he met at the church where he was volunteering, Avery found a stable place to stay and a nurturing environment.

The negativity Avery experienced from so many different members of his biological families has instilled in him a drive to prove them all wrong, to show that he is not "another useless nobody." His has a passion for giving back and is determined to be the stabilizing force in his future family that he so often yearned for in the family he was born into, to “have and raise a family like mine didn’t raise me.”

Despite all of the tumult in his life, Avery holds a 3.57 GPA, ranking him 7th in a class of 131 at Liberty High School, where he is on the track team and an active member of multiple service groups. He plans to attend Texas A&M and become an aerospace engineer.