Jaques Clinton, a recent Cardinal Ritter College Prep graduate, spoke to The St. Louis American from the hospital waiting room on June 9, while his aunt underwent breast cancer surgery.
“We found out back in February that she had breast cancer, but they caught it at an early stage,” said Clinton, an orphan who has lived with his aunt since he was 13. “She prolonged the surgery until after my graduation because she wanted to be able to participate in the ceremony and my prom.”
For him and his aunt, the educational nonprofit InspireSTL was like their second family, he said. And at the InspireSTL graduation ceremony on Thursday, June 4, when executive director Charli Cooksey gave the 18 Class of 2015 graduates “keys to success,” it was particularly symbolic to him.
“Inspire has been extremely supportive,” said Clinton, who will attend Dillard University, a historically black university in New Orleans, in the fall. “They helped me get into a phenomenal university. They have helped me with college applications and fill out scholarships, especially this last year of high school.”
Since 2011, InspireSTL has helped place 140 talented low-income middle-school students into the region’s top college-prep high schools. The program follows their “scholars” throughout their high school experience and supports them both academically and emotionally.
For Clinton, InspireSTL helped to pay for his tuition, school uniforms and books – while also acting as his academic coach and providing a network of students he could count on, he said.
With the hope of helping other orphans deal with the grief of losing their parents, he would like to study child psychology at Dillard and later perhaps family law, he said.
“Your circumstances do not define you,” he said. “If anything, they make you stronger and push you to create a better world for yourself and others.”
“For anyone out there who suffers from the loss of a loved or has a difficult time coping with grief, I want to say, ‘That is not your destiny,’” he said. “I am living proof.”
Clinton was part of InspireSTL’s inaugural class in 2011. Amina Dalton, a recent graduate of Carnahan High School of the Future, was also in the first class. She remembers when her eighth grade Spanish teacher gave her an application for InspireSTL.
“I was hesitant, not knowing what was going to happen, but my mom thought it would be a good opportunity,” said Dalton, who entered Metro Academic and Classical High School as a freshman.
In her sophomore year, she was failing three classes because she said the six hours of homework every night was overwhelming. She said she didn’t have time to be a teenager.
“I felt disappointed in myself,” she said. “Instead of being disappointed in me, Inspire encouraged me to leave Metro because it wasn’t the best fit for me. Inspire did really have my back. They really understood what I was going through.”
Every week, her InspireSTL coaches would have weekly goal-setting meetings. But aside from academics, she said InspireSTL helped her break down some social anxiety that she had built up from being bullied during middle school.
“When I was in middle school, I was shy,” Dalton said. “Inspire helped me come out of my shell.”
Now her fellow InspireSTL scholars are some of her best friends, she said. In the fall, Dalton will attend University of Missouri – Kansas City and study pre-med.
At the graduation, InspireSTL showed a video of the scholars talking about the program.
“To see myself talking about Inspire made me very emotional,” Dalton said. “Inspire has impacted so many students already, and it’s only been around for four years.”
In 2011, InspireSTL’s four founders – Cooksey, Kathryn Bryant, Sonya Forg and James Kelly – were placed in inner-city middle schools in St. Louis as part of the Teach For America program.
“It helped me realize that our students need long-term opportunity access and support,” Cooksey said.
“A lot of my students didn’t realize what a low-performing high school was. They all had visions of doing great things, but didn’t realize going to a certain high school gives you a less than 10 percent chance that you will be able to complete high school and become the things you aspire to be.”
For Cooksey, graduation was a reminder of all the diverse challenges that their inaugural class had overcome, she said.
She said, “Despite their many challenges – from losing their parents to immigrating from a foreign country – they were all there to celebrate their accomplishments and the fact that they made it together.”
Follow this reporter on Twitter @rebeccarivas.
