Dawn Loggins didn’t grow up poor. She grew up learning that the adults around her could not be trusted to stay.
“Dawn Loggins did not have a bad childhood. She had something harder to describe, a childhood that taught her, slowly and repeatedly, that the adults around her could not be counted on.
She grew up in a ramshackle house in rural North Carolina – dark, cockroach-infested, perpetually on the edge of collapse. No electricity. No running water.
She and her brother Shane would walk 20 minutes to a public park and fill jugs from the bathroom spigots when they needed water to cook or flush the toilet.
She went days, then weeks, without a shower. Classmates called her dirty.
She did not stop going to school.
Her parents moved constantly – eviction after eviction, new town, new school.
Dawn attended 4 different high schools before landing at Burns High School in Lawndale, North Carolina, in March 2010.
She had missed nearly an entire academic year. She was behind.
She was also brilliant.
2010. Burns High School. Lawndale, North Carolina.
Guidance counselor Robyn Putnam noticed Dawn and her brother within weeks. She enrolled both in online makeup courses.
She drove Dawn to appointments. She advocated for her the way her parents never had.
Dawn did homework before dark because there were no lights. She took 3 Advanced Placement courses and an honors class. She earned straight A’s.
She joined the pH๏τography club, the rock climbing club, the Spanish club. She became president of all 3.
Then the summer before her senior year, something remarkable happened. Dawn was selected for the Governor’s School of North Carolina – a prestigious 6-week residential program at Meredith College in Raleigh, reserved for the state’s top students.
Putnam drove her the 200 miles to get there. She bought Dawn clothes for the program. Other teachers contributed money. No one was sure where Dawn’s parents would be when she got back.
That uncertainty was warranted.
Summer 2011.
Near the end of the program, Dawn tries calling home. The phone number is disconnected. She tries again. Same result.
She returns to Lawndale. Her grandmother has been dropped at a local homeless shelter. Shane is gone. The house is empty. No note. No warning.
She learns later that her parents have moved to Tennessee.
Dawn is 17 years old. She has no home and no family to call.
“I found myself absolutely homeless with nowhere to go,” she tells CNN. “Instead of worrying about it, I decided to take action.”
She starts couch-surfing. She keeps going to school. She carries toothpaste, a toothbrush, soap, and shampoo in her school bag, because a shower is now a matter of opportunity.
Senior year. 6 a.m.
A school custodian named Sheryl Kolton takes Dawn in – giving her a stable place to sleep. Other staff members donate money for clothes, medical care, and dental appointments.
Through a school workforce program, Dawn becomes a part-time custodian at Burns High. She starts at 6 a.m., 2 hours before class. She sweeps hallways. She scrubs classrooms. She picks up gum students leave under desks while mentally running through material for her next test.
Here’s what makes it worse, because she had needed to make up missed school credits through online courses – rather than AP classes that generate extra grade points – Dawn ranks approximately 10th in her senior class despite having nothing below an A-minus all year.
The valedictorian тιтle goes to a student with a more conventional path through the system.
She does not complain.
She takes 3 AP courses. She earns straight A’s. She leads 3 clubs. She cleans the building before anyone else arrives.
December 2011. 1 more application.
Dawn applies to 4 in-state schools. Then her history teacher Larry Gardner pushes her one step further.
She sends a 5th application – to Harvard University. The 1st Burns High student ever to do so.
“I thought about it and figured – why not?” she says.
Gardner writes her recommendation letter. It takes him days. “How do you articulate her story into 2 pages?” he later says. “How do you explain this is a young lady who deserves a chance but hasn’t had the opportunities?”
He finds the words.
The letter.
One afternoon, Dawn opens an envelope from Cambridge, Mᴀssachusetts.
“Dear Ms. Loggins, I’m delighted to report that the admissions committee has asked me to inform you that you will be admitted to the Harvard College class of 2016.”
She doesn’t jump or scream. She takes a breath.
She shows Gardner the letter the next morning. He reads it. He looks up at her. His voice breaks.
“When I first met her, they were living in a home without electricity, without running water. They were showering at a local park after most people had left. This is a young lady who’s been through so much. Pretty awesome.”
Harvard covers all of Dawn’s tuition, room, and board. Everything.
June 7, 2012. Graduation day.
When the announcer calls “Ashley Dawn Loggins,” the auditorium erupts – a standing ovation in a small-town gymnasium for a girl who mopped their hallways before class. She breaks down in tears for the first time.
“All I could hear were their screams,” she says afterward. “That’s when I got overwhelmed and really emotional. I felt like all my hard work had finally been recognized.”
Nearly 60,000 people share her story on Facebook that day alone.
Her brother Shane graduates the same week, on a full scholarship to Berea College in Kentucky.
When reporters ask about her parents, Dawn is quiet for a moment. Then,
“I love my parents. I disagree with the choices they’ve made.
But we all have to live with the consequences of our actions. If I had not had those experiences, I wouldn’t be such a strong-willed or determined person.”
Burns High School. 1,100 students. Dawn Loggins was the 1st ever accepted to Harvard.
Share this with someone who needs to know – that the circumstances you were handed are not the story. What you do with them is.”
