March 5, 2024
Allen Gomez is living his parents’ dream of a better life.
His Mom and Dad, Marlene Hernandez and Raul Gomez, immigrated to the United States in 1994 and 1995, respectively, seeking opportunity and security, not only for themselves but for the family they hoped to have one day.
Allen is fulfilling their hopes as a first-generation American and first-generation college student at Clemson University.
“Simply put, these dreams would be unrealized without the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund,” he said. “I’ve needed every dollar of my $10,000 award for each of the past two years to afford college, and I’m incredibly grateful for that gift. But this is more than a dollar amount. It’s an acknowledgement that my education, my hard work, my ambition and the sacrifices made by parents – all of it matters.”
JOURNEY TO AMERICA
Allen has a unique appreciation for what his parents experienced because he lived through part of it.
Allen’s father is from Ecuador and his mother is from El Salvador. His parents met three years after living in the United States while taking a night class on speaking English.
The pair married, had children and moved from Georgia to Charleston for his father’s work building houses.
Allen was 7 years old in 2010 when the recession hit and construction opportunities all but dried up. His father lost his job as a contractor, and Allen’s entire family moved back to Ecuador to live with his grandparents while the global economy recovered.
“It was a remarkable time in my family’s story and in my life,” Gomez said. “I became fluent in my parents’ language, was immersed in a beautiful country and culture, and created bonds with family members who would have otherwise been unknown relatives for the rest of my life.”
Still, he saw clearly why his parents wanted to escape: poverty, limited opportunities and a lack of widespread access to quality education and healthcare.
After three years, his father made the difficult decision to return to the United States without his wife or children to re-establish their lives. Allen, his mother and two siblings planned to join him one year later. Allen described it as a “supreme act of love.”
“It’s still a process, but we’re in a better place now than we were then,” he said.
JOURNEY TO COLLEGE
Allen knew he wanted to go to Clemson, and he remembers the collective euphoria that buzzed through his house after receiving his acceptance letter.
That was tempered in the following months after he began to understand its cost. As his parents contemplated what they would need to financially endure to make his dream possible, Allen considered student loans.
And that’s when he learned about the Meeting Street Scholarship Fund. The Meeting Street Scholarship offers up to $40,000 for college to public high school students in 12 South Carolina counties who are high achieving (earn a LIFE Scholarship) and have demonstrated financial need (qualify for a Pell Grant).
“I remember when I found out about the Scholarship, it was an email that my guidance counselor had just forwarded to me,” he said. “I didn’t even normally open their emails, so it was by chance that I opened this one and I saw it.”
He applied and soon learned he was a finalist.
That single decision changed the course of his life and college experience, he said. It meant that he’ll graduate from college without any student loans.
It meant that he can fully experience Clemson without worrying about how he’s going to pay for housing or food.
It meant that his goal of medical school and a career in medicine are within reach, both academically and financially.
“It means that I’m able to stand on the shoulders of my father to reach opportunities never available to him and that I can fulfill the dreams that my mother passed on to me,” he said.
Gomez said his experience at Clemson has been incredible, and he’s grateful for all of it – the late-night study sessions in the library, the excitement of football season and even the stress associated with his biochemistry major. He’s proud of making the Dean’s List, for making friends and for creating a home on a campus three hours away from his parents.
“My parents remind me, ‘We came here in search of a better life, so be better today than you were yesterday, and be better tomorrow than you are today,’” Gomez said. “I think I’m doing exactly that.”
