Winner is Cabrillo College Single Mom & Cancer Survivor From Watsonville
CAPITOLA — Soroptimist International (SI) of Capitola-By-The-Sea has selected Leah Resendez, 27, of Watsonville, a Human Services student at Cabrillo College, to be a winner of a “Live Your Dream” (LYD) Award given to a woman who is enrolled in a vocational/skills training program or an undergraduate degree program, and is the primary financial support of her family.
She will be honored with a $2,000 cash award at Soroptimist International of Capitola-by-the-Sea Awards Reception and Ceremony in March.
Resendez, a single mom of a seven-year-old daughter with special needs, struggled in high school, opted out of classes and got a GED, worked minimum wage jobs, had her daughter at 18 and never thought she’d be able to go to college. At 23, a lump on her shoulder turned out to be a rare form of cancer that restricted the use of her right arm. After four surgeries and eight weeks of radiation, she was in remission but was told that the cancer may return and could eventually be fatal.
After healing, she decided to make the most of her uncertain life and took the advice of a friend and enrolled in Cabrillo College’s Academy for College Excellence (ACE) program to learn the skills she needed to be successful in college. She blossomed and at the end of her first semester had achieved a 4.0 grade point average.
After that first semester, she also was hired to work in the Learning Communities Center and the ACE Program, where she spends 10-to-19 hours a week, in addition to caring for her daughter and taking classes.
While she has recovered from her illness, her surgeries have left her with pain and fatigue in her hand and arm, making writing and typing difficult. Her cash award, which may be used to offset any costs associated with her efforts to attain higher education, will help her purchase assistive devices such as a note-taking pen and speech recognition software.
“I dare to believe, I put my best work into everything, and I always strive to better myself,” she wrote in her award application.
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Soroptimist, a coined Latin phrase meaning Best for Women, is a worldwide service organization for women who work to improve the lives of women and girls in local communities and throughout the world. For more information, visit the SI Capitola website at www.best4women.org or contact SI Capitola at [email protected].