High-Five Scholarship Impact: Student Testimonial #1

August 13, 2019

[Dear Prepared: The Gateway of the Northwest],

First I want to start off by introducing myself. My name is Levi Stockard III. A quick rundown of myself is I am a Vashon High School Graduate of 2017 in which now I am currently attending a four year college named Kansas State University. I received a full scholarship to go to this school based off my scholarly and athletic abilities. Along with being a full time student I am playing Division One basketball as well. My success as a student and basketball player for Vashon high school lead to my opportunities to receive a full scholarship. Now I am currently entering my junior year of college. My first two years I studied Kinesiology the study of exercise behavioral science, but now going into junior year I have chosen to go a different way in my studies. I am now studying Human Development and Family Science. After college I want to continue my athletic career for as long as I can physically do so. After that I want to become a coach first at the collegiate level if not that then any level would be fine. My goal as a coach is to serve as a positive role model for children and young adults while building them to become a successful adult themselves.

As a senior in High school I was blessed to be one of the five recipients of Mr. George Love’s High five scholarships. Receiving this scholarship has taught me many lessons in my life. First off the lesson that Mr. Love presented which was that no matter who you are and what you do you can be a blessing to someone else. I was intrigued by Mr. Love’s story. Mr. Love is an African American man that is making a difference in young black people’s lives with making little money as a custodian. It made me wonder what else was possible. Then I knew that if he could do this that means that I could go off to school and be successful not only as an athlete but as a Student as well. It truly inspired me to keep going when things got tough in college. I used Mr. Love’s story to get me through a lot of hard times I faced while away at school. Like being home sick, classes not going my way, not being as successful as I wanted to be on the court and many other challenges. Overall it gave me a benchmark to not settle in life and always strive to do better not only for myself but more importantly for others. Another lesson I learned was how to take care of and spend my money on the right things. This helped me when I got to college and started receiving scholarship money. This scholarship gave me a head start in preparing to leave for college. With the money I bought cleaning supplies, clothing, storage bins, and all the necessary things I needed to go off to school and live on my own for the first time in my life. I never handled that much money to myself before and because of it’s great value I didn’t want to put it to waste so with help from my parents I successfully bought everything I needed for school. I want to end off by telling a story. Before I received this scholarship I knew nothing about Mr. Love. I didn’t even know about the scholarship that he was giving out. I for sure didn’t know that I was a candidate to get the scholarship either, but what I didn’t know was Mr. Love was watching me seeing how I was and how I treated people. He asked my teachers about me, he did his research. Finally he came to the decision to choose me as one of the recipients to get his scholarship that comes out of the little pay that he makes as a custodian. It still ceases to amaze me to this day of how great of a man he is and what he has done. It made me think of the old saying of you never know who’s watching and what they can do for you. It reinforced the idea of the integrity of doing things the right way all the time not just because someone’s watching.I am truly appreciative to be apart of something great that Mr. Love is doing. I wish the best of luck to him and his work helping and inspiring people like myself. Lastly, I want to thank you for taking the time to hear my story and learn a little about me and my life.

Thank you,

Levi Stockard III

We want to thank Levi for his heartfelt and thoughtful letter. Hearing about the impact our scholarships are having on students (FROM students) makes this journey all the more meaningful to us.

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