Anna was only six years old when her father was injured in a tractor trailer accident. “I remember my mom waking me up in the middle of the night to go to the hospital,” she recalls. “I was too young to really understand what was happening, but I was frightened.”

Her father had sustained a broken neck and back in the accident, leaving him permanently disabled and unable to work again. “There were emotional effects and trauma, too,” Anna points out, adding that he passed away in 2020. “I often felt that the accident hurt his spirit, that he felt so bad about being unable to providef or his family.”

Over time, Anna began to grasp the reality of her family’s finances. “By the time I was in high school I assumed that college would be out of reach for me,” she says. “It was isolating, too. I didn’t know anyone else in my situation. I was afraid to talk about it with anyone.”

“It was my mom who fought for me,” Anna continues. “I was afraid to believe that college was possible. She told me about Kids’ Chance and encouraged me to apply.”

Anna was aKids’ Chance Scholar from 2019 to 2023, earning a bachelor’s degree inPolitical Science and Public Policy from Pennsylvania’s Washington &Jefferson College. Her initial plan was to attend law school after college, butan internship with the Quaker Valley Council of Governments pointed her in the direction of local government. She followed this early experience with an UrbanAgricultural & Food Policy internship with the City of Pittsburgh, an administrative internship with the Township of Upper St. Clair, and most recently with a scholarship-funded internship with Cranberry Township.

She recently completed her master’s degree and began working for Cranberry Township full-time.

“The scholarship resources Kids’ Chance of Pennsylvania provided were absolutely essential, but the organization provided much more,” she says. “People from the organization checked up on me regularly, sending care packages and wanting to know how I was doing. I felt so much less alone. They gave me the confidence toknow that I could accomplish things.”

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