Support Joana's Dream of College Education

We are fundraising to help my little cousin Joana with her college tuition. Joana has just graduated from high school and is headed to Rutgers University, New Brunswick for college. She is an amazing student, athlete, and daughter with a 3.9 GPA and a commitment to realizing her dreams as a first-generation college student.

Joana's family comes from a home full of love but with modest means. She’s the 9th of 11 kids, and sadly her father passed away during the early months of the COVID pandemic just a few years after her brother was killed in an incident of gun violence. She’s been raised by my aunt a single mother/widow and helps to take care of her developmentally disabled youngest sister. She has been singularly determined to go to college and she has an amazing academic and extracurricular record and a highly awarded student (she was accepted to 18 schools nationwide)!

This is why we need your help: Even though the family is on public assistance and show a need for support, the financial aid and loan amounts given to her was meager. She has applied to dozens of scholarships but the ones she was awarded don't make a dent on the large tuition bill.

Joana is a kind and committed young woman with a long journey ahead to pursue to academic and professional goals. We want raise enough funds for her tuition and books so that she can focus on her academics her first year and to relieve her mother of the impossibly high tuition.

Please help if you can.