A Mere Bus Pass Helped Alberta Graduate as a Nurse
Her story illustrates the narrow margins our students have in making it through school. Their success is often the result of just enough of a family contribution, their own work income, a government grant, and a Canyon Scholars sponsor — but then also, stable room and board, or sufficient transportation!
Alberta is a gem, a young lady who learned from her mother to be respectful, honest, and to care for the needy. She plays volleyball on an indigenous women’s team, and starts each day with prayer.
Her dream was to be a nurse, but it proved to be uphill in more ways than one. “Getting to and from the University was my biggest challenge, and it actually hurt my grades,” she said.
For that reason, we were inspired to hear another travel story. A 2018 Canyon Scholars college graduate named Emily, sponsored by the Madison Kiwanis Club, came from a village far into the Copper Canyon. While attending the university 10 hours away in the capital city of Chihuahua, Chihuahua, she rented a building to provide fellow students from her village a boarding house. Rent shared by five students made it affordable for all of them to go to college there.
Alberta is passionate about providing medical attention, and the leadership to eventually provide electricity, jobs, and better schools to her home community, she said. Little did recent graduate Alberta know, when she found out about Canyon Scholars, that she would be a key player in a worldwide health crisis. But her graduation perfectly coincided with the onset of the Covid epidemic. Her story illustrates the narrow margins our students have in making it through school. Their success is often the result of just enough of a family contribution, their own work income, a government grant, and a Canyon Scholars sponsor — but then also, stable room and board, or sufficient transportation!
We celebrate Alberta’s graduation from the University of Nayarit in Tepic, and her new career as a nurse. She thanks her sponsor Mary Murray Alberta to a lifetime of service! for her compassion, and the link of support she’s given
