Meet this year's recipients of our branch's academic scholarships. We wish them great success going forward!
David N. Elien, Jr.
David N. Elien Jr. is a graduate of Chapel Hill High School. David is heavily involved in his community. He has volunteered at the Boys and Girls Club of Greater Durham, Habitat for Humanity, March for Babies, and other service organizations through Jack and Jill of America in which he served as community service chair. He was also a co-founder of Brothers of Unity, an affinity group for African-American males at Chapel Hill High School. He played three years of Varsity Basketball at Chapel Hill and was Co-Captain, Big 8 All-Conference, and Team Co-MVP his senior year. He was also a member of the National Achievers Society and National Technical Honors Society. He will attend Williams College and plans to enroll in Fall 2019. He is interested in majoring in biology or genetics and will play varsity basketball as well. His career plans include lab work revolving around the topic of self-diagnosis and managing genetics diseases/disorders.
Kalkidan Miller
Kalkidan Miller, East Chapel Hill High School: With a passion for social justice, travel and working with disenfranchised children and youth, Miller will attend Guilford College in the fall of 2019. In 2017, Miller was selected to participate in the Youth Theological Initiative at Emory University. In the summer of 2018, she was selected to go to India to study public health with the Experiment in International Living Leadership Institute. She is the co-coordinator of Kechene Ethiopia Orphanage project and co-chairs the Racial Equity Alliance club at ECHHS. She works part-time at Trader Joe’s and enjoys writing songs, playing guitar and photography.
Christopher Jaedon Thompson
My name is Christopher Jaedon Thompson, and I am a young man who is truly honored and blessed to have received one of the 2019 college scholarships awarded by the Chapel Hill-Carrboro branch of the NAACP. I have attended Carrboro High School for the past four years and will attend the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in the fall of 2019. My career goal is to become a Sports Psychologist or Therapist and counsel teen and young adult athletes who may deal with stress, depression and anxiety. I know from experience that stresses of the outer world can affect the inner body and thoughts of young people in so many ways. I’ve experienced times of frustration, jubilation, disappointment and loneliness through sports, academic pressure and just being biracial but identified in society as black. I also aspire to become a mentor to our minority youth and carry on the work that a few great men, both black and white, did by taking their time to guide, counsel and educate me coming up. We need to focus on the mental health of our young athletes just as much as their physicality. Being an athlete is a defining part of who I am. Being a role model is something I am developing into. Being a man of color who can support others to speak their true feelings, heal their wounds from within and mature into advocates for other young people of color is my determination.
Corrina Johnson
Corrina Johnson will be graduating from Chapel Hill High School in June. In the fall, she will be planning on attending the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Corrina will be studying Kinesiology with a minor in Spanish to become a Physical Therapist. In her time at Chapel Hill High, she was a part of a series of organizations; MSAN (the Multicultural Student Achievement Network), Y-Li (Youth-Leadership Institute), Superintendent Student Advisory Board, and co-captain of the Varsity Softball Team. Corrina has found a passion for serving her community from social justice work to community service. Corrina was a lead facilitator in a Classroom in Color; a professional development presentation that teaches educators how minority students feel in a predominately white classroom environment. She also was a lead participant in Jr. MSAN; a program started at Ephesus Elementary School. Corrina spent every other Monday afternoon creating and teaching lesson plans to 4th and 5th graders. The content of Jr. MSAN was surrounded by teaching tolerance, showing minority students how to feel comfortable in their skin, and how to be leaders in their community. Not only does Corrina want to continue this work at UNCG, but expand to benefit more communities. She is excited to see how a new city will impact her social justice work.
Oranique Mangaroo
My name is Oranique Mangaroo, and I graduated from Carrboro High School. I am currently enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. I plan to major in nursing with a pre-medicine track. Once I graduate, I would like to attend medical school to begin my studies. I plan on working in the hospital as a nurse while I am in medical school to help pay for my tuition. My long term career goal is to become an obstetrician-gynecologist and work in Jamaica for a few years providing quality care to women less fortunate. I want to give minority women a chance at a healthy life. Many times during a woman’s pregnancy, she may experience problems and will seek help from her gynecologist. Minority women are often denied adequate help due to not having medical insurance or for just being a woman of color. Since the problems that she may have been facing was not fixed or addressed, many women experience complications during labor that could have been avoided. I will never turn down anyone because they can not afford medical insurance or because of the color of their skin. Women will know that they are getting the same treatment and attention as everyone else and will not have to worry about their unborn child’s health or their own.
Jeneice Mason-Carter
Jeneice Mason-Carter is an 18-year-old senior at Chapel Hill High School who is excited to say that she will be attending UNC Greensboro in the fall to pursue her career in psychology. She is the captain of the track team, but when she’s not on the field, she works a part-time job and is one of the many leaders in a lot of clubs that she is involved in. One of the many clubs she is involved in is a club called MSAN (The Multicultural Student Achievement Network). This club focuses on educating others on the racial disparities in schools, in which they hope to slowly but surely close the achievement gap. At UNCG, she plans to create a club just like MSAN that gives other people the same resources that MSAN gave her.