Furthering Dreams

Kiera Aycock is starting her freshman year at the University of Memphis. She will live in a dorm. And she will major in criminology, or in psychology with an emphasis in criminology.

Kiera Aycock poses with the Tom the Tiger statue at the University of Memphis, where she plans to study criminology and psychology. Aycock is one of 75 students to receive 2015 Community Foundation scholarships.

(Daily News/Andrew J. Breig)

A graduate of Southaven High School, she has earned several scholarships including the Community Scholarship from the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis for her volunteer efforts with Memphis Miles for Myeloma run/walk, and her work with Bridge Builders and Student Ambassadors at her high school.

“I am extremely proud of her,” said her mother, Bonnie Rook. “But I’m more relieved than anything.”

Going to college wasn’t quite so easy for Rook.

“When she was born, I was 18, working at Taco Bell and very impoverished,” Rook said.

Yet as a commuter student holding down two jobs and raising a child as a single mother, Rook graduated Delta State.

“It was a high-pressure time but I graduated with a perfect 4.0,” Rook said. “I used her as a focal point instead of as a crutch.”

A lot of family success stories begin with a college degree that at one point seemed unobtainable. For this school year, the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis (CFGM) has awarded 78 scholarships to 75 students from 22 different scholarship funds for a total of $116,920.

The scholarships are often set up in someone’s name as a way to honor a lost loved one, says CFGM vice president Sutton Mora Hayes.

“Our goal is to help as many kids get to college as possible,” Hayes said. “Most of the scholarships are in the $1,000 to $2,000 range so they will not get you to school completely.”

But they can be the difference in which college a student can afford to attend, where they can afford to live, or how much they have to work while carrying a full academic load.

“What’s cool about these scholarships is whoever the donor is can pick the subject that is most important to them,” Hayes said.

Sabrina Davis, a Whitehaven High School graduate, will be attending the Memphis College of Art with help from the Ruby Holmes Hefley Scholarship (for children of parents with disabilities). Davis is battling glaucoma. She’s majoring in graphic design and wants to set up an online apparel store that sells products with her artwork printed on them.

Ashion Safdari and Taylor Spight are attending the U of M and each has received a Kylen C. Bares Memorial Scholarship (for students majoring in math, science or engineering).

Safdari, who is Iranian-American and graduated Germantown High School, will be the first in his family to go to college and plans to study mechanical engineering. Spight, who graduated Arlington High School, is majoring in biomedical engineering.

Kiera Aycock with her mother Bonnie Rook on the University of Memphis’ campus. Aycock is one of 75 students receiving a total of 78 scholarships from the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, which awarded $116,920 in total scholarship funds this year.

(Daily News/Andrew J. Breig)

“I don’t have a dream job, per se, but I’ve always imagined being able to help kids with disabilities,” she said.

So their stories are just starting.

“Every year donors get a letter telling them about their students,” Hayes said. “Some of them want to seek out the students and have a connection and some don’t.

“But it’s important for us the scholarships continue,” Hayes added. “The scholarship fund has to be endowed and the minimum amount is $25,000 and they have three years to build up to $25,000.”

Aycock knows her journey should have fewer challenges than what her mother’s had, but she also knows there is a lot of work in front of her and that an undergraduate degree well could be just the beginning.

“I don’t think it’ll be easy,” she said of a future career in psychology/criminology. “But I think I’ll have a knack for it.”

For more information about setting up an endowed scholarship fund through the Community Foundation of Greater Memphis, go to www.cfgm.org or call Sutton Mora Hayes at 901-728-4600.

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