Kids’
Chance
Scholarships give these kids an opportunity
By ERIN CUNNINGHAM News-Post Staff
ecunningham@fredericknewspost.com
GRACEHAM — When Monica and Sarah Free lost their father in 2003, it
emotionally shattered their family. What they weren’t ready for was the
financial burden on their mother, Tina.
Calvin “Sonny” Free was 43 when
he died in a ditch cave-in while working on underground utilities in Montgomery
County.
With three kids to care for and bills piling up, Mrs. Free
declared bankruptcy. The insurance payments through worker’s compensation and
Social Security benefits would only cover so much. She even ended up selling
some of her family’s possessions and hasn’t been able to afford a grave marker.
“I had a lot of decisions to make,” she said. “Each one was hard.”
When it came time for her oldest child, Monica, 21, to apply to college,
things looked grim.
“It just wasn’t financially possible,” Mrs. Free
said. But when Monica was searching for scholarships on the Internet, she found Kids’ Chance. The national organization offers
scholarships to children whose parents are seriously injured or killed in
on-the-job accidents.
She applied for a
scholarship through the Maryland chapter. Monica now receives $2,000 per
semester to attend McDaniel College in Westminster.
When 18-year-old Sarah graduated from high
school last year, she applied for a Kids’ Chance scholarship of her own. She was
awarded $2,000 a semester from the nonprofit organization and chose to go to
college with her sister at McDaniel.
“I couldn’t
have sent them to college without this,” Mrs. Free said.
Her youngest, Chad, hopes to apply for a Kids’
Chance scholarship to help him pay for a degree in auto mechanics.
Sunny Grimes
When Sunny Grimes graduates from
Walkersville High School in a few months, she will enroll in Hood College in
Frederick. And like the Frees she received a Kids’ Chance scholarship.
Her father, Gary, died while working
construction in 1998 when he was run over by a fork lift.
The 17-year-old said she chose Hood because it’s
close to her home just outside of Woodsboro.
“I
don’t really feel like moving away from home yet,” she said. “I don’t feel like
I’m ready. I want to be close to my family.”
Her
family includes her mother, Laura Grimes Hartley, her stepfather and her younger
sister Annie, a high school sophomore. Sunny found out she was awarded the Kids’
Chance scholarship a few weeks ago and said it was a thrill. Like Monica, she
discovered the scholarship online.
She will
start classes in the fall, planning to major in public relations.
She has been a dancer since she was 2-years-old
and now teaches ballet, tap and jazz to 4- and 5-yearolds. She also takes dance
classes five days a week.
While taking classes
full-time at Hood, she said she wants to get a job during the day to help pay
for school. If there’s time left, she will keep teaching dance classes at night.
Donald Schildt, a Kids’ Chance board member,
said he hears stories like the ones from Monica, Sarah and Sunny all the time.
When he’s not volunteering his time working with students, he’s on the workers
compensation committee for Eastalco steel workers.
At the Kids’ Chance annual fund-raising gala,
everyone is usually in tears by the end of it, he said. This year, Monica will
be speaking.
“I’m just going to be telling my
story and how (Kids’ Chance) helped out,” she said.
Taking the chance
When their father died, Monica and Sarah
lost a parent and half of their family’s income. Because there was a time when
going to college almost didn’t happen, the girls are grateful for the
scholarships and are taking their chance.
Monica
is majoring in history and wants to be a teacher. To help pay for college, she
is tutoring middle school students in New Windsor. Both Monica and Sarah work at
the YMCA.
Earlier this month, Kathy Stone, a
Kids’ Chance board member, and the girls were talking about struggling through a
full course load and working two jobs. Her own father died when she was younger.
They talked about how to save money by eating
cheap and how the hardship is worth it in the end.
Staff
photos by Doug Koontz Sarah Free, above left, her sister Monica, and
Sunny Grimes, below, are receiving scholarships through Kids’ Chance.
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