He didn’t realize his $40,000 scholarship was split between two semesters, leaving him $14,000 short two days before his tuition was due at Cornell University.
That’s when Jonah Okike-Hephzibah took a friend’s advice and posted a plea on the crowdfunding platform GoFundMe – and blew through his goal, The Cornell Daily Sun reports:
“More than anything, I want to accomplish my educational goals and give back by designing innovations such as prosthetic limbs for veterans,” he wrote on the page. “But to do that I find myself in this terrifying and humbling position, needing, once again, to reach out for help so that I can continue to work hard to achieve my dreams.”
A transfer student from Santa Monica College with a 4.0 GPA and member of program that “promotes STEM majors for minority students,” Okike-Hephzibah described himself as “a first-generation undocumented minority student from a single-parent home shared with my five siblings” on his fundraising page.
The campaign went viral when the president of the 2016 class posted about it on Facebook, after which Okike-Hephzibah decided to increase the goal to $28,000, to cover both semesters:
I promise to share updates if I receive any scholarships or grants and make adjustments to the goal to reflect that. If I still end up with any funds in excess of what I need, I will pay your kindness forward to other students who find themselves in a similar situation and who are in need.
His GoFundMe page Friday afternoon shows he’s raised more than $21,000. Other minority students haven’t fared so well: An Asian-American Columbia University sophomore who got stiffed on financial aid came up several thousand short of her $15,000 goal on GoFundMe.
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