Gabrielle Allen worked two jobs throughout high school to make ends meet for her family. Her single mom was unable to care for her and her siblings, Allen said, and she realized she would have to provide.
By the time her junior year rolled around at Kenwood Academy High School, Allen, 18, was exhausted — mentally, emotionally and physically. During the week she would work at Pizza Hut and Harold’s Chicken.
Mid-junior year, Allen realized she needed to find time to bring up her grades. Support from great friends helped the Kenwood graduate accept what she had to do.
“I (fixed) my act so I can be perfect and work two jobs and maintain good academics my senior year because if I’m going to college this is what (colleges) are looking at right now,” said Allen, who is from the Kenwood neighborhood.
Allen tied for 2nd place in the annual Revie Sorey Trunk Scholarship Celebration last week at South Shore Cultural Center. The scholarship program is named for former Chicago Bear Revie Sorey, who served as the former educational services director of Ada S. McKinley Community Services after he retired. The agency works across several Midwest states to provide opportunities for education and employment.
A group of 14 students were named finalists and top winners, and 125 students each received a trunk filled with a laptop, bedding, backpack, a shower caddy, a subscription to a tutoring service and other supplies to aid incoming college freshmen.
Allen, along with three other top finalists, will receive a gift card prize to put toward college expenses.
In front of a crowd of proud loved ones and students, Allen and other honorees shared why postsecondary education is important to them.
Allen beams as she tells the Sun-Times about her future at University of Massachusetts Boston and majoring in psychology this fall. She dreams of becoming a family therapist to help Black families.
“I feel like psychology would help me break down a lot of the generational barriers and traumas,” she said.
Although she didn’t have the opportunity to do extracurricular activities during school, Allen loves to do her hair to relax. She sports a sleek, long braid on the evening of the celebration, done by Allen herself.
“As a Black young lady, we have so many stigmas and stipulations on how our hair should look, or what is presentable or what’s acceptable,” Allen said. “So having the time to let that be my peace and dedicating that time to sit and love myself and say, ‘This is what beauty is to me and this is what I’m going to accept.”
Allen shared the second-place honor with Tamyah Kamille Dockery, an 18-year-old graduate of Percy L. Julian High School.
Dockery admits she doesn’t have her future completely mapped out, but she has plans to take her love of television shows like “Criminal Minds” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit” and mysteries to become a criminal psychologist.
“It’s something I want to take seriously,” she said. “I can enforce something that is serious to me, which is mental health. It’s something I feel needs attention.”
A packed schedule of National Honor Society, Working on Womanhood, debate club and flag football kept the West Pullman resident busy. Before heading off to Xavier University Louisiana, she hopes to spend some time relaxing and preparing for her transition into adulthood.
“I know I don’t have it all figured out, but that’s why a postsecondary education is important,” Dockery said. “I want to work on my personal growth.”
She was shocked when she found out she’d become a second-place winner, just one day prior to the ceremony.
“It was mind-blowing,” she recalled. “I didn’t know how to react.”
First place winner Roman Chambers found out he’d won the top prize the day before too.
He was driving when he got the call. Chambers was behind the wheel, but managed to continue driving when he found out the surprising news.
“I didn’t even realize I’d gotten first place,” Chambers said.
The Chicago Tech Academy graduate will head to Southern Illinois University Carbondale to study computer science.
He plans to save the prize money on books needed for when he starts school in the fall.
As a child, Chambers loved taking things apart and putting them back together. The 18-year-old has managed narcolepsy since he was 12 through medicines. He moved around a lot growing up until settling in Roseland at the start of high school.
Chambers shared some advice for students that helped him as he moved around.
“Stay true to yourself,” he said. “Don’t let people change you.”
