Stories of Hope: Eighth-grader sets sights on dual enrollment, college scholarship
My name is Marcus Burnett and I am in the eighth grade at Campbell Middle School. I participate in Food Brings Hope’s FBHonors program, where we work on homework after school and then do a lot of STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) projects together.
I was selected to be in the FBHonors program because I am a good student making all A’s and B’s. I am also in advanced classes; last year I took algebra and this year I am in geometry. I am earning high school credit for my math classes.
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I joined the FBHonors program in the fourth grade at Westside Elementary and want to continue with the honors program when I go to Mainland High School and do dual enrollment. If I stay in FBHonors, I will earn a college scholarship.
One of my favorite FBHonors moments was when we took an earned field trip to the Magic Kingdom, which I had never been before. We had to have good grades and no disciplinary referrals to go on the trip. We also helped fundraise for the trip with an after-school snack shop. At the park, we did a behind-the-scenes tour of the Haunted Mansion and learned how they do special effects on the ghosts using technology.
In seventh grade, we did a summer camp with FBHonors when we visited the Kennedy Space Center and learned about rockets. We learned how they use STEM to get the rockets into space and how they use parachutes to get the rockets to come back down.
When I was younger, I really wanted to be an engineer but now I want to go to college to study video game design, which is technically engineering. I either want to go to a technology college or Bethune-Cookman University, since my mom and sister graduated from B-CU and my brother is a student there now.
I also want to create a series on YouTube and be an actor. I really enjoy performing on the drum line with the Campbell Middle School band and want to play on the drum line when I go to college, too. In my free time, I like to write or play video games. I actually started writing a book, it’s not finished yet. It’s a fantasy and my mom loved the first chapter. My mom is an English teacher at Mainland High School. We read the Percy Jackson series together. I am mainly getting into mythology books now, like South African folktale and Egyptian mythology. If I became a published author, I could use technology to write the book and use math to calculate how many people will actually read it and how much money I would make.
I think in my future job, I will use my STEM skills.
This Christmas, my family is going to Long Island, N.Y., to visit our family. We do this every year and usually drive but this time we are flying. My wish this Christmas is to receive Pokemon or Minecraft video games for my Nintendo switch video and to get some more mythology books.
About this series: The FBH Community’s mission is to foster community organizations that proactively work to eradicate the causes of generational poverty. FBH Community hosts programs such as Food Brings Hope’s KidsZone, TeenZone, FBHonors and Change the Code, Pierson Family Literacy, Homes Bring Hope and the FBH Prosperity Initiative help hardworking families struggling with hunger, housing insecurity, underemployment, and low levels of literacy. Overhead is covered by the Hosseini Family Foundation, so 100% of donations go directly to the programs and families. Throughout the holidays, The News-Journal is highlighting the organization by publishing the stories of some of its young participants. To donate to the organization, or to brighten the holidays by donating a gift to a child, email info@foodbringshope.org.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Food Brings Hope student works toward dual enrollment, scholarship
