A homeless 17-year-old girl named Megan Faircloth has beaten all of his high school colleagues to earn the best-graduating student award at East Wake High School, United States.
Megan graduated from East Wake High School in North Carolina, United States with an outstanding 5.25 cumulative grade points average. Her excellent performance ranked her as the number one in her class making her the school valedictorian for 2022.
She achieved this success amidst facing the challenges of homelessness. Megan told ABC News that during the school year, she bounced around from relatives’ homes, hotels, a shelter, and even her family’s car with her two sisters and mother.
”Every day when we got home from school, my mom would have to drive around looking for money for a hotel room or a motel room and it was difficult because at one point we would get home around 12 [a.m.],” Megan said.
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“We wouldn’t get home — we would get to where we were going to sleep that night around 12 and then I had to start my homework and it was exhausting running around all day,” she added.
Megan mentioned that they often struggled to afford food, which made things challenging. Sometimes, she had to do her homework outside, in their car, or in public parks, which was tough, especially if the homework needed internet access.
She stated that listening to Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” and reading books about others who had triumphed over adversity helped her persevere. Despite the challenges, she graduated as the valedictorian and excelled in her Advanced Placement Classes.
“At one point, I think … my biggest low was when we were outside and it started raining and it was windy outside and I was trying to pin down my homework with all of my books and stuff like that and it started raining on my homework and I was like,” Megan said
”This can either be the end or this is the beginning of me fighting on and deciding to go through all of this and try my best. I just tried to keep my spirit up,” Megan added.
She stated that they had been living in a rented house without a lease before so when the homeowner died they were evicted leaving them homeless. Megan said not long after, her mother had to have surgery to remove a tumor and the recovery left her unable to work.
She mentioned that though the relatives helped out, they were forced to live in hotel rooms, cars, and a shelter because of convenience. Megan’s hard work and perseverance earned her an acceptance from Stanford University in the United States.
Megan mentioned that when she started applying, she had not addressed but the university had expressed interest in her earlier which in turn motivated her.
“I really carried that through me before then, I hadn’t really thought about Stanford that much or the possibility of going to one of the tops, like a prestigious school like that, and I really would’ve been satisfied with going to any college at that point, ’cause I just wanted an education,” she said.
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