MIAMI (WSVN) – A couple of South Florida students got a big scholarship surprise.
Sonaly Basurto had no idea that she was getting a fully paid scholarship, thanks to the Kiwanis of Biscayne Bay.
“This is so exciting, it feels like a dream,” Basurto said,
Basurto is a senior at Booker T. Washington and was born and raised in Peru. She came to the U.S. eight years ago, and in April, she became a U.S. citizen.
This month, she’s being awarded a scholarship worth $30,000 that will fully cover her tuition at Florida International University.
“My family doesn’t have enough money, but because I got Kiwanis scholarship, I feel so happy about it,” she said.
But there’s more.
Makayla Chery spent most of her high school in hospitals and lost sight in her left eye.
But her vision for her future has never blurred.
“Knowing that those people took care of me, I wanna take care of others,” Chery said.
Chery will be attending Florida A&M to study nursing and will not need to worry about the financial burden.
“Let me tell you, I was praying up there, I was like ‘Oh my God’ like butterflies running through my stomach because everything I’ve been through in my life like I prayed to God for this moment,” she said.
Her father was very proud of his daughter.
“My daughter worked so hard for this, you don’t understand, she’s living proof,” said Chery’s father.
The award would be impossible without Chery’s proud father and Basurto’s supportive mother by their sides, as well as the folks at Kiwanis who make the selection out of the hundreds of students at Booker T. Washington.
“We start working with them in the 11th grade. We use one of the counselors here to help pick out a certain group, sometimes 15 in that group. Each one is assigned a mentor. They work with that mentor for their full year of their senior year, meeting with them at a minimum of once a month,” Rick Freedman said. “I pretty much get emotional every year I do this.”
Both these young women spent their high school years working, studying, and volunteering. That hard work is now paying off as they become the first in their families to go to college.
Basurto hopes to one day join the FBI and Chery plans to become a nurse.
Both girls are hoping to save lives, thanks to the money given to them on Tuesday.
These two bring Kiwanis’ total number of scholarships up to $420,000 over the past 12 years.
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