gloria
Gloria is funny. It's one of the first things you notice about her, she's quick with a joke and easy to laugh. But beneath that humor is someone shaped by a story she's carried since birth.
When Gloria was born, she had a major brain cyst that grew to the size of a softball. She met a team of neurosurgeons, and with their help and some luck, it just disappeared. "I was like, you know what? That's so cool. They were able to help save me. I want to be able to save people like they saved me."
Today, Gloria is headed to Virginia Commonwealth University as a bio major with a pre-med minor. Her goal is to become a neurosurgeon working in ER and trauma. She's coming in with nearly a year's worth of credits and plans to graduate in three years. "I'm trying to do it where I don't take out any student loans."
At Clover Hill High School, Gloria was everywhere. National English Honor Society, National History Honor Society, Beta Club, Vice President of Club Development at Manchester YMCA, a Leaders Club she'd been part of since sixth grade. She volunteered at St. Francis, with the Chesterfield County Food Bank, and tutored through her church. For the last ten years, instead of asking for birthday gifts, she asked for food donations. Her new record? 363 pounds. She graduated with over 1,200 volunteer hours and was one of the youngest nationally to earn her Girl Scout Gold Award in 2022.
"I don't want to say I'm spoiled, but I'm in a really fortunate position, and not everybody is. I don't think it's fair that I have all these good things coming to me and I can't use that to help other people."
Gloria draws her strength from her mom, a medical legal death investigator who graduated top of her class. "I see how hard she works for the two of us every day, and I think I need to get up to that level of hard work and dedication."
It’s time for Gloria to turn dreams and plans into actions, and go after what she wants. "It's not about the money. The money's nice, but I want to help people because I know how scary it is to be in a situation where you don't know if you're gonna live." As long as she gets her pet pig again, "that's a whole other story" and her friends and family are happy, that’s all she wants.
The Pedestal Fund is honored to help Gloria become the kind of neurosurgeon she got as a child, and to help her get that pet pig again, too.