Published 12:06 am Thursday, August 14, 2025
By Chandler Inions
SALISBURY — Being a mother is hard enough as it is, but try getting a degree at the same time.
However, with the help of the Andersen Nontraditional Scholarship for Women’s Education and Retraining (ANSWER) Scholarship, a local non-profit that provides college scholarships, mentoring and professional development training to moms with school-age children, three local women were able to balance motherhood with matriculation.
Tywanda Heilig, a mother of two, will graduate from Catawba College this December with a degree in business management and a minor in marketing.
Her journey reflects perseverance as she has overcome challenges, including the loss of her brother to violence, her mother’s battle with cancer, and her grandmother’s passing during the pandemic.
“It has been a struggle, but my faith and family are all I can say as to what has gotten me to this point,” Heilig said.
Thanks to the ANSWER Scholarship, Heilig was able to go back to school, even after life events made graduation seem almost impossible. After getting through a tough stretch of personal loss, Heilig was still juggling life’s challenges and just trying to keep all the balls in the air.
“After getting through that stretch, I was working so much overtime,” Heilig said. “My 10-year-old (at the time) said, ‘Mom, you cannot be working like that, you gotta go back to school.’”
Her son’s solution still carried problems, and money was tight.
“I was faced with two different times, whether I was going to pay a bill or buy a textbook,” she said.
She made up her mind that she was not going to be able to keep going when she found out about ANSWER.
A counselor told her that there was a scholarship that she qualified for.
“Just apply and be your authentic self,” Heilig recalled her counselor’s encouragement. Now, Heilig is on a path to a better life, and the process has been very fulfilling.
“They assign you a mentor,” she said. “I’m going on my second year. That is the beautiful thing about this scholarship. It is not just a financial gain; it offers a mentor.”
Heilig also pointed to a mantra of the program that she said has extended to her children.
“Educate the mother, educate the child,” Heilig said.
With Heilig fulfilling her promise to her children to finish her education, she’s more confident than ever that they will eagerly seek their own academic accomplishments.
April Fowler will graduate in December from Rowan-Cabarrus Community College with an associate’s degree in nursing.
She will complete her degree while caring for six children, ages 9 months to 20 years.
“My children and my partner encouraged me to go back to school and finish pursuing my nursing degree because they know how much it means to me,” she said.
Butler grew up an only child in Concord, attending high school at Northwest. After graduation, she went to Winston-Salem State.
“When I came home that summer, I got pregnant, so I did not go back to school,” she said.
Fowler’s oldest son is now 20. She has a daughter who is 19 and another son who is 16. Her three youngest children are four years, two years and nine months old, respectively.
Fowler got a CNA right out of high school, so she has worked in that role for years at Novant Health Rowan Medical Center. Despite various means of support, life has not always been easy for Fowler.
“It is hard and it is challenging, but I have an amazing village,” she said. “Just the best support system ever. My boyfriend hands down, his parents, my mother, my older children, friends, family, ANSWER, my mentor. Everyone plays a part.”
Fowler said she found out about the ANSWER Scholarship at work from an email that the CNO sent out.
“It was in a newsletter, and it talked about a scholarship to help moms,” Fowler said. “I saw it and thought that is me. Anything that can help me with school is great. Anything to take that financial burden away is amazing.”
For Fowler, officially getting her nursing degree has been a mission for a long time.
“Obtaining my nursing degree is personal,” she said. “I lost my dad in 2013 unexpectedly. I want to make him proud. I want to make myself proud. This is a better opportunity for me, a chance to better my life and my children’s lives. I want them to have a great life as well. I want them to see their mom going back to school, and I want them to know that nothing is impossible.”
Briana Pertee was the first in her family to obtain a college degree when she graduated in May from Catawba College with a degree in birth through kindergarten education. Her desire to support underprivileged children and let them know someone is rooting for them was part of her motivation to go into education as a profession. Now she’s working as a kindergarten teacher at Koontz Elementary in Salisbury.
Pertee’s life has taken her around the globe after humble beginnings in West Virginia. She was married at 19.
“(My husband) was in the Air Force,” Pertee said. “He went to England, and we got married shortly after that. Then I went to England, then New Mexico.”
She never imagined herself pursuing education, but things turned out differently than she expected.
“When I was a kid, I always thought (teaching) might be cool, but I never thought I would become one,” Pertee said.
Pertee was enrolled in various types of post-secondary education, including TeachNC.
“Teach paid for people in the early education field to get their college degrees,” Pertee said. “I was back and forth with Teach, and then one of the advisors at Catawba emailed me and told me about the ANSWER Scholarship…
“I would not have been able to get (my degree) without ANSWER, from a financial aspect, no.”
Now, with the school year underway, she is no longer a student but a teacher.
“Truthfully, it is as simple as if you are a mom and a traditional student, you need to fill out the questions and move on with it,” Pertee said. “Either you get the scholarship or you don’t, but there is no harm in trying.”
Pertee encourages anyone who might be interested to check it out.
“ANSWER is life-changing, and the work that they do is out of this world,” Pertee said. “Anyone who has the chance to be a part of it should take it and hit the ground running.”
Founder and Executive Director Susan Andersen got the ANSWER Scholarship going in 2006. At the time, it was the fulfillment of a promise she made to herself years before.
“I did not realize it at the time, but my father was the first in his family to go to college and graduate,” Andersen said. “That was very important and that was what was talked about in my home as a young girl. It was a big influence in my life. When it came time for me to go to college, my parents had been divorced, but it had already been instilled in me that I was going. I just figured out how I was going to pay for it.”
A local organization came along and offered her a four-year partial scholarship to attend UNC-Charlotte.
“After I graduated as a young graduate, I made a vow that I wanted to pay it forward and help others out,” Andersen said. “When the opportunity came and I was able to make good on my promise … I decided I want to help moms, married or single, because if you educate a mom, then you educate the children.”
One critical element to the program, as noted by each recipient is that they get a volunteer mentor who provides encouragement and support.
The next round of ANSWER Scholarship applications will open in the fall.
“Our scholars have to be 25 years and older, and they have to be raising one school-aged child that is K-12,” Andersen said. “They have to be enrolled in school full time, maintain a 2.5 GPA, be a U.S. citizen, and they have to be living in (one of) the 12 counties we serve.”
Those counties include the area surrounding Mecklenburg County. Scholarships will not go to students enrolled in for-profit colleges, and the amount awarded depends on whether students are in a community college or a traditional four-year school.
The results of the scholarship reflect its success over the past two decades.
“Since we got started, we have served more than 150 women and awarded more than $920,000 in scholarships,” Andersen said.
This past year, they had a 91 percent graduation rate.
“It is a passion to see and help other women to achieve their dreams and an education,” Andersen said. “It changes lives. Not just the lives of themselves. It goes beyond even the family or the community. Just one woman getting an education can change generations to come. For me to see that is something that I would never have dreamed of.”
To learn more about the scholarship, visit the website at https://answerscholarship.org/27017-2/.
