I was three semesters into community college, working a part-time job, and completely out of options financially. The numbers just didn’t add up anymore, and my bank account was empty. Defeated, I walked into the campus financial aid office, fully prepared to tell them I was dropping out of school right then and there.

The woman sitting behind the desk, Ms. Reeves, listened to me quietly as I explained my situation. Instead of just handing me the withdrawal paperwork, she looked at me firmly and asked me to give her just twenty minutes of my time before I made any final decisions.

She opened my file and immediately went to work. For the next twenty minutes, she pulled up obscure grants, state-level funding programs I had never even heard of, and local foundation money. She even discovered an employer-linked scholarship through my very own part-time job that I qualified for but had no idea existed. She didn’t just point them out; she pulled up the applications and filled out two of the forms with me right there on the spot.

By the time I walked out of her office, I had enough expenses covered to completely finish the academic year. I came back to that office every single semester after that, and she always remembered my name. I graduated two years later, and she was the absolute reason I crossed that stage.