Lee Smits Dararaksmey Memorial Scholarship

May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and for me, this May carries a greater significance. My sweet daughter Lee would've been wrapping up her senior year in high school; unfortunately, sometimes the stars align in the saddest ways. Lee was deeply looking forward to exploring the freedom that comes after one's high school years. So as the 2022 senior class wraps up their high school experience, I've been thinking, "what can I do to make sure Nana (as I call her) is somehow taking part in this milestone?".
Lee spent much of last summer researching various colleges in the northeast - adding them onto a spreadsheet for us to look at and tour together (a daughter after my own heart). She knew what she wanted, and she wanted to experience newness. She had her sights set on a career in psychology and mental health, presumably to help those suffering in ways she was all too familiar with.

 

We talked about what it would feel like when I visited her at college. From stocking her fridge and helping with laundry, to having lunch with her friends and touring the city or town she would end up calling her second home - we talked about doing it all.

 

By playing a part in the college journey of the two "Lee Smits Memorial Scholarship" awardees, Lee's legacy will be carried into college and beyond. As Lee herself wrote, “time will continue to flow, everyone and everything is connected”.

 

-Beverly