Ayanna Hubbard wants to do more than make her own dreams come true. She wants to help her mother reach her dream as well.
The Pleasantville High School senior is on her way.
Hubbard, 18, learned last month that she received The Gates Scholarship, a highly competitive scholarship that pays every dollar of tuition not covered under the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA.
The acceptance rate this year was a little more than 1 percent, with Hubbard one of just 750 students chosen from an application pool of more than 61,000 applicants nationwide.
"I don't even know how to explain the feeling," she said. "I'm very proud of myself."
Pleasantville English teacher Gary Gray knew she had a chance when he was teaching her over the summer as part of the High School's Bridge Program that allows students to earn college credits while still in high school.
He wrote her a letter of recommendation for the scholarship that he learned about two years ago, when another Pleasantville student won.
"Ayanna asks great questions," Gray said. "She's very perceptive and has these kind of lofty goals."
That includes being the first of her four brothers and two sisters to attend a four-year college. Her youngest brother went to Atlantic Cape Community College for a semester.
"It's a lot of pressure," she said. "I am really proud of myself to be the one to break out of the generational curse of poverty."
Her goal is to open her own architectural firm, with a side business of a convenience store with her mother, who has dreamed of owning her own business.
Gloria Dunn works as a crossing guard.
She moved her family to Atlantic City from Newark when Ayanna was in fourth grade, attending Brighton Avenue School.
They later moved to Pleasantville. At the High School, Ayanna is a member of the Math Club and National Honor Society, and plays tennis.
She also is earning credits toward her associates degree as part of the Bridge Program, where Gray saw her potential.
Hubbard said the process included a Zoom interview that "just seemed like a conversation."
School counselor Annalysa Coleman also submitted a recommendation letter.
Gray said he already was having good day when some of the Bridge students waved him over and Hubbard told him she got the scholarship.
"I work with great kids all day," said the 23-year veteran teacher. "You don't know what their potential is going to be until they go out and do it. "The kids are nothing but potential."
