Five homeless students are getting that chance of a lifetime thanks to a scholarship funds that can help make their dreams of higher education come true.

CBS 2’s Rafael Romo reports on one student who worked hard at her education despite extreme hardship.

Getting a scholarship for college is only the beginning of a dream for Lane Tech High School graduate Vianey Contreras, who will be attending Harold Washington College.

“The money that will be awarded to me, I will not take a penny for granted. And my gratitude will reach north to south because, honestly, you have kept a lot of hope in me, my mother and my sisters,” Vianey said.

For the most part of her senior year, Vianey and her family were homeless after a fire almost destroyed their home.

She still managed to graduate from high school despite the fact that she had to work full-time to help her mother. In essence, she became the father of the family.

“Kind of. My dad left and it was just me and my mom,” Vianey said.

On Thursday, she was one of five graduates from the Chicago Public Schools who were awarded a scholarship for college as part of a program for homeless students.

“These are some remarkable young people who’ve overcome tremendous odds,” Schools CEO Arne Duncan said.

Back at home, Vianey still shares parenting responsibilities with her mother and works full-time. She’s also recovering from the death of a baby brother, but she says nothing will get in the way of her dream of earning a college degree.

“If it wasn’t for the people around me, I don’t think I would’ve done it because I think I was getting ready to give up a long time ago when I was at the hotel,” she said.

This is the first year the Homeless Education Program awarded scholarships to students. The money was raised by other students who volunteered as part of their community service activities.

(© MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.)

This entry was posted on Friday, June 30th, 2006 at 10:12 pm and is filed under Scholarship. Tags: College, Education, Grant, Scholarship, Student. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.