Still Rising: Bay Area Students Continue Overcoming Long Odds

SAN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) -- It's a new year and a good time to check in on three of our rising stars who are now in college: one who had to work full-time to support himself, another who rose above homelessness, and a third who talked himself out of suicide after coming out.

LEARN MORE: Students Rising Above

Olman Lopez is totally on his own, financially. No welfare. He worked full-time at McDonalds since he was 15 years old.

We met him when he was a high school senior in San Rafael.

"It's scary because you know that by the end of the month you have to have that money or to pay the rent because if you don't you could get kicked out of the room," he told us.

Olman and his sister were renting a room together in San Rafael, and scraping by. They were born here, but their parents returned to Guatemala. They are farmers and poor and they wanted their children to be in the United States to find a better life.

"It is really hard because I always need someone to give me advice or support, Olman said. "Maybe give you a hug to make you feel better, which is what I don't have."

"He's been functioning as an adult since he was 15 years old," said his Students Rising Above advisor, Heather McKenzie. "He would describe waking up at four to five a.m. to work on homework before school, then going to school all day, trying to stay awake in class, then right after school, going to McDonalds."

Olman struggled to manage it all. When he got home at 11pm from work, he was usually too tired to study. For years, his two days off Tuesday and Thursday, were the only days he could concentrate on homework.
"It was really hard," he said, "but I've always tried my best to do everything I can."

His advisor confirmed that. "He has incredibly difficult circumstances and yet he's rising above," said McKenzie. "He's going to school. He's on track to go to college."

Students Rising Above gave him some money so he could cut back his work schedule at McDonalds and finish high school.

I recently saw Olman at a Students Rising Above event. I was surprised how more mature, and relaxed he looked! Such a change from that overworked "kid" I'd met a little more than a year ago.

Olman has just completed his first semester at College of Marin.

Sabrina Villanueva Avalos was about to graduate high school when we met her in 2015. You'd never guess she and her mother were homeless during her freshman year.

Sabrina's hard-working mom lost both her jobs during the recession, which left them scrambling; eventually they were evicted.

Sabrina described the eviction as feeling like a "giant slap in the face."
"We went from motels to shelters" she said. "I went to friend's houses where (we) were pretty much separated for months."

Still, Sabrina managed to not only keep up in school, but to stay in the rigorous International Baccalaureate program which requires college-level work.

Her teacher was shocked to find out what Sabrina was dealing with. "I think she just knows to keep doing the right thing," Kim Vinh told us.
"She's dealt with obstacles non-stop but the next one comes and she takes a deep breath and then she goes, 'I can handle this.'"

But the obstacles kept coming. Her mom was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, then breast cancer.

"It was really hard to focus on what was important because everything was important and everything was so big," remembered Sabrina. But her first priority was always her mother. "I don't know what I would do if I lost her, but every day she just kept saying 'you know you're not going to lose me, I'm gonna be fine' …The fact that someone is going to be able to say that after everything is going on, it's just kind of amazing."

Her mother was the one to told her to focus on he education. Good news followed: they got a housing voucher - and most important - her mom's cancer went into remission.

This fall, Sabrina spent her first semester Gonzaga University in Washington - the first in her family to go to college.

We met Regino Rodriguez during his senior year at Roseland University Prep last year. He lives with seven other people in Roseland; money is short.

But Regino's biggest challenge is that he's gay.

"It is hard," he tells us. "You just wish there would be someone else that is the same as you, but this little Hispanic community that I'm in there's not many."

It was his freshmen year when a teenager in New York named Jamie Rodemeyer committed suicide after being relentlessly bullied online. Like Regino, he was a Lady Gaga fan and had talked about that online. "He was an inspiration to me because I thought I was like him ... He just wanted to express himself and dance and just do all these things that boys don't normally do and all these other people were just so mean to him.

Later that year, he decided to come out. "I'm tired of covering up," he explained. "I'm tired of conforming to society's stereotypes for me. I want to be my own person … I want to enjoy what I enjoy without people telling me you shouldn't do them."

He was at a new charter school that was smaller and more embracing. But even there, his teacher Kristen O'Conner could see it was not easy. "For a teenager to do that, it takes incredible courage, because for him it was coming from all sides," said O'Conner. "It wasn't just coming from his peer group, it was coming from pretty much everyone in his life, from his family, from the people at school …"

Regino says it was liberating, but he could feel people judging him. "When he first came here, many people laughed at him," said O'Conner.

He was alienated at home and school. "I definitely felt isolated at school, at home," said Regino. "I would lock myself in my room."

Eventually, the pressures got to him and led him to the point of considering killing himself. "What drove me to the point of suicide was just the fact that all these people were so nonsupportive of the issue and my family itself was uncomfortable with the issue," he said.

"My thoughts just got the best of me and I just got the rope and tied it … I was ready to just go, but thankfully, I talked myself out of it."

A long talk with an accepting cousin helped him express all his thoughts and fears, but the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that he is not alone. The CDC says lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth in grades 7–12 are more than twice as likely to have attempted suicide as their heterosexual peers. Further, LGBTQ youth are much more likely to be bullied and depressed. (http://www.cdc.gov/lgbthealth/youth.htm)

Later that year, a transgender teenager named Leelah Alcorn committed suicide in Ohio because her parents disapproved of her. Vigils were held across the country. That pushed Regino into action. "At the end of her suicide note, she wrote that she wishes her death could mean something," he remembered. "After reading that, I felt like it's my turn to make that change. I'm not going to sit here and watch all these people just dying."

Regino became a leader in the social justice club, and began speaking out. "We're all human and no one deserves to be dehumanized," he said.

"I think he chose to value himself enough and to not allow the community around him to shame into being someone he is not," said O'Conner.

Regino just finished his first semester at UC Irvine. He is the first in his family to go to college.