David Boone: From Homeless To Harvard

David Boone, 19, has been admitted to Harvard
and many other Ivy League universities

Previously I had blogged about the amazing story of Khadijah Williams, an African-American homeless girl who lived on Skid Row in Los Angeles and who was admitted to and is now thriving at Harvard University. I guess such heart-warming stories are not as rare as I first thought. Today I bring you the story of David Boone, a homeless African-American boy from Cleveland  who will be going to Harvard starting in Fall 2012!

You really should read this entire article on David Boone at The Cleveland Plain Dealer:

David, 18, credits [ MC²STEM High School] both with engaging him more in class and with raising his standards so that he could not accept mediocrity. The result was academic success: He expects to be the salutatorian of his school's first graduating class.

And he was accepted at 22 of the 23 colleges he applied to. Turned down only by his top choice, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, he's one of the few people who will attend Harvard as a fallback option.

While David is softspoken, with a healthy amount of modesty, his achievement is a source of pride for Cleveland school officials, who rave about him. His success is even more impressive given his background.

He has little contact with his father, he says, and has not lived regularly with his mother, Moneeke Davis, since eighth grade. After a neighborhood gang shot up her Eddy Road home, the family had to split into several places, he says, and David has bounced from home to home, sometimes living on the streets.

I love these kinds of stories! If you readers here of any similar stories of against-the-odds successes, feel free to leave links to them in the comments. In a couple of years I will try and follow up and find out how David is doing at Harvard. Happily he received a Gates Millenium scholarship so almost all of his expenses will be paid for while he is at college.