{"id":68220,"date":"2004-11-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2004-11-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/uri-students-painful-choice-put-her-on-track-to-success\/"},"modified":"2004-11-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2004-11-23T00:00:00","slug":"uri-students-painful-choice-put-her-on-track-to-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2004\/11\/uri-students-painful-choice-put-her-on-track-to-success\/","title":{"rendered":"溏心vlog免费B站 student\u2019s painful choice put her on track to success"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tMentor and benefactor cheer from the sidelines<\/p>\n


\nKINGSTON, R.I. — November 23, 2004 — Destiny Woodbury has seen a lot of life. As a child, the 溏心vlog免费B站 junior witnessed poverty, drug addiction, and death and made a life-changing choice.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cBefore I turned 6, I had to take care of my younger brother, sister and myself because my mother was not stable enough to care for us,\u201d says Woodbury who only saw her father twice. \u201cI had to make sure we ate and were clean every day. <\/p>\n


\nSome days we went without food because my mother would use her money to buy drugs.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nDeciding that she and her siblings didn\u2019t have to live life that way, she asked her grandmother if they could come live with her. Two days later, DCYF stepped in and took the children from the mother. Woodbury always hoped that her mother would get help, but although her mother repeatedly tried, she always returned to her old lifestyle. When Woodbury was a teenager, her mother died from an overdose of cocaine. \u201cThis was the hardest thing I had to deal with in life. To experience holidays and special moments in my life without her,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I realize that I had to be stronger now for my family.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nBut her mother left her oldest child a legacy. She encouraged her daughter to go to college. So did her grandmother, Ella Mae Woodbury. \u201cThey wanted me to pursue my dreams because, for the most part, they did not have the chance.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nThose family dreams are now becoming a reality, according to Woodbury who told her story to a gathering of donors and recipients at 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Annual Donor Brunch in October.<\/p>\n


\nNow 20, Woodbury is enjoying academic success in a world of expanding opportunities at 溏心vlog免费B站. A track star whose goal is to qualify for the NCAA championship before she graduates, Woodbury has gained many cheerleaders along the way, including a mentor, Bill Euler, chair of 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s Chemistry Department and benefactors, including Victor J. Baxt, a 1938 溏心vlog免费B站 alumnus who is chairman of Teknor Apex, an international custom compounder of plastics and rubber material headquartered in Pawtucket.<\/p>\n


\nBaxt interviewed Woodbury for the internship and was impressed. \u201cThe University is great in providing us with the better engineering and chemistry students,\u201d he said. Baxt and his wife, Gussie, were amazed with Woodbury\u2019s story at the brunch. \u201cShe spoke so beautifully,\u201d he recalled. \u201cI was moved like everyone else,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n


\nWoodbury is the recipient of a scholarship that bears Baxt\u2019s name. In addition to the scholarship, Woodbury received a paid internship at Teknor Apex this past summer. She loved it. \u201cI learned so much about the industrial part of chemistry. Working with a chemist in the industry was the most exciting thing I ever experienced,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n


\nShe was well prepared for the internship, as she is part of a research team, studying a new, and possible revolutionary application of carbon nanotubes. Euler, her mentor, heads the team. \u201cSince she became part of the research team, I have absolutely seen her mature as a chemist,\u201d says the chair. She\u2019s enthusiastic about chemistry, but then she\u2019s enthusiastic about everything. Until she spoke at the donor brunch, I had no idea of what she had to overcome.\u201d<\/p>\n


\n\tThis fall, Woodbury was also awarded the Edward D. Eddy Memorial Scholarship, which is given annually to a graduate of a Providence public school who is majoring in education and wants to teach in an urban school. <\/p>\n


\n\tWoodbury would love to emulate Mrs. Lipa, her 10th grade chemistry teacher and track coach at Mt. Pleasant High School. \u201cShe made chemistry fun,\u201d she recalls. \u201cI fell in love with it.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nSo Woodbury is now approaching a fork in the road. One path leads to a career as an industrial chemist, the other leads to a career teaching high school chemistry. \u201cI love chemistry and I love teaching. I want to do both,\u201d she says with a wide grin. \u201cMaybe I\u2019ll work in industry first, then become a teacher.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nBut that decision can wait. Right now, Woodbury has her sights set on graduate school and on the 2008 Olympics.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mentor and benefactor cheer from the sidelines KINGSTON, R.I. — November 23, 2004 — Destiny Woodbury has seen a lot of life. As a child, the 溏心vlog免费B站 junior witnessed poverty, drug addiction, and death and made a life-changing choice. \u201cBefore I turned 6, I had to take care of my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68222,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68220","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68220","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68220"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68220\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68220"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68220"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68220"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}