Last year, Crystal graduated from high school, despite having no stable housing and no adult support in her life. The City of Bellevue, Bellevue School District and Bellevue College partnered to provide scholarships for Crystal and two other students experiencing homelessness to attend Bellevue College and live in the dorms free of cost.
The students didn’t have the resources or budget for the necessities typically needed when you move into a dorm for the first time. When Bellevue LifeSpring was notified of the situation, members of the One Circle organized to collect and donate the dorm room essentials for all three of these students to ensure they were set up to succeed in college.
Crystal shared this letter expressing gratitude for the assistance she received from the Bellevue community:
Being a full-time student with a part-time job is very hard to manage, even more so with unstable housing. Sophomore year of high school, I was classified as a homeless student, moving from place to place every couple of months. As a result of this homelessness, I was selected to be part of a free housing program sponsored by the Bellevue School District, Bellevue College and the City of Bellevue.
In September 2019, I moved into my Bellevue College residence hall. Not only was my housing provided for but all of the supplies I needed for my housing were given to me by Bellevue LifeSpring. Bellevue LifeSpring circle members provided me with bedding, bathroom supplies, kitchen supplies, cleaning supplies, everything I needed! I lived in an apartment styled residence hall with two other roommates. Together we were able to study and learn new hobbies such as painting and art. We even followed a routine together every morning. It always started off with a 30-minute meditation session followed by a healthy breakfast to ensure we were fully awake for our morning classes. Throughout high school, where I stayed was always far from school which made it harder when commuting to school. Every morning, my sisters and I had to wake up earlier than planned in order to not be late to class. We also got home late every afternoon, limiting the amount of time we had to finish homework, eat, shower and sleep.
Living on campus gave me a lot of time to study hard, to socialize with other students, to attend activities…it even gave me time to still get a good amount of sleep. Knowing I had stable housing for a full year relieved a form of stress that I had developed over the past three years. I even got the chance of remembering my full address. I was minutes away from resources such as the school library where I was able to print out study packets, minutes away from the tutoring lab where there were available tutors for almost every subject and minutes away from my amazing TRIO advisor.
Thank you for the amazing opportunity. I will be graduating at the end of spring quarter. My plan for the following school year is to finish my bachelor’s degree at Eastern Washington University School of Psychology. Every student deserves to prove themselves and their capabilities.
-Crystal
Thank you to our generous One Circle members for their support to ensure Crystal and her classmates have what they needed to start their college careers.
