This is part of a series spotlighting individuals that the MPS Foundation has the honor of serving.
Nakilah Ransom has never had it easy. As someone with severe asthma, she has brushed death in the ICU on more than one occasion. She also had to move houses and schools five times throughout her childhood due to limited means. Making friends and thriving in school takes time, but Nakilah was always getting uprooted. Luckily, she would spend all four high school years at James Madison Academic Campus. Unluckily, her freshman year coincided with 2020, and the global pandemic meant all virtual classes.
Since the situation was unprecedented, schools and teachers worldwide struggled to keep learning engaging all day over a screen. Procrastination set in. In sophomore year, schools started letting the students come back a few days a week, but it wasn’t the same. Everyone was undersocialized, and her classmates were basically strangers with hidden expressions under their masks. Were they judging her? It was hard for Nakilah to trust anyone. Some people had short fuses and would pick on anything different about an individual if it meant they could start a fight to let out two years of agitation.
However, Nakilah had one serious advantage after having lived through so many personal difficulties—she developed the ability to apply herself despite her abundant doubts. Contrary to her wariness of the intimidatingly masked strangers, she decided to get involved by joining the First Nations Studies College Access Program (a program supported by the MPS Foundation). The group helps Native American high school students at Milwaukee Public Schools to transition to postsecondary life.
First Nations offered a lot of fun new experiences like when the students made maple syrup from tree sap and dined on acorns. Another time, they went out to the woods and burned sage to thank the world that provided them with everything they needed. For the first time, Nakilah researched some of her Pacific Northwest Native American heritage too. Most prominent were the field trips to college campuses where the students could contemplate their next educational steps. Nakilah spent two weeks in the dorms at UW-Milwaukee previewing college life.
Everything started to smooth by junior year when school was again entirely in-person. She had made a close friend, and it was easier to connect with her teachers and subjects. Her grades were good, especially in Spanish class. By then, Nakilah had taken a job at the movie theater, and it was exciting to suddenly understand snippets of Spanish spoken by theatergoers. Spanish class also gave her another glimpse of the wider world outside Wisconsin, a place she had never left. She wanted more education, the chance to travel, and maybe even to study abroad. However, even with her new job, these things would take loads of money she didn’t have.
Nakilah’s limited financial resources were daunting in the face of higher education. No one else in her family had attended college before, and because tuition everywhere is significantly more expensive than in previous generations, she knew serious personal debt lay ahead. Clearly, Nakilah needed as much financial assistance as possible but didn’t actually expect it to arrive… and then she won the MPS Foundation-sponsored Tad Dugan Memorial Scholarship. She immediately used the $3000 award to help cover the cost of her college tuition.
“You put in all this work, you feel like it’s for nothing, and then boom—you realize that someone is actually paying attention. You feel special! I don’t even know these people, but they chose me for the scholarship. That was really sweet.”
NAkilah
Nakilah is now a UW-Milwaukee freshman and is excited to take classes in Spanish language, water ecology, poetry, Native American studies, and pharmacology. While her major is still undecided, she intends to use her education to help others. Nakilah explains, “I just like helping other people and seeing them happy—that makes me happy. Also, I like seeing other people do well and it makes me feel like I did something good if I’m the reason they’re better than where they were before.”
Relate to Nakilah’s sentiment? Join our mission to help MPS students succeed with a donation here.
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