Troubled Prince William teens beat the odds

The teens who gathered at the Old Manassas Courthouse this week were former drug users, juvenile delinquents and victims of abuse or neglect.

But they are on their way to becoming high school graduates, scholarship recipients and success stories.

“Whether you know it or not, the statistics say that young people who have grown up with the obstacles you have grown up with do not succeed,” Prince William County Bar Foundation President H. Jan Roltsch-Anoll told the teens Tuesday. “Those of you in this room defy those statistics.”

The 16 young people in the room were chosen by the Bar Association to receive Beat the Odds awards this year.

The program gives scholarships and other educational awards to teens who have had some contact with the juvenile court system and have made “significant strides to overcome obstacles in their lives,” Roltsch-Anoll.

“We have kids who have been victims of crime and kids who have been criminals. It runs the gamut,” Roltsch-Anoll said.

One scholarship recipient, Yaileen Rodriguez, is blunt when she talks about the drug problem she battled a few years ago.

“When I came into the ninth grade, I was just ready to die,” the 18-year-old said. “But then my teachers were the ones who said it’s never too late to make a change. And now after four years, I can finally see that.”

Now a senior at Gar-Field High School, Rodriguez said she plans to attend Northern Virginia Community College next year.

She wants to become teacher.

Prince William County’s Beat the Odds program started in 2001, when three teens were awarded $1,000 scholarships.

Since then, the program has given about 70 kids over $200,000 in scholarships and awards, Roltsch-Anoll said.

This year’s winners will get their scholarships during an awards banquet at the Heritage Hunt Golf Club in Gainesville on May 28.

In addition to the scholarships, the Beat the Odds program offers Phoenix awards to younger students. This year the Phoenix awardees will al receive laptop computers.

Courtney Blaydes, a senior at Osbourn High School, won a Phoenix award last year and is back this year to receive a scholarship.

Blaydes, 17, said she’s come a long way in high school — all the way from a 0.667 grade point average her freshman year to a 4.0 this year.

“This year I’m just trying to get good grades,” said Blaydes, who wants to study psychology.

Along with the scholarship, Beat the Odds program participants also get matched up with mentors, local lawyers who volunteer their time to give the teens support and guidance.

The idea is to make sure that the teens not only have money to pursue their post-high school goals, but also a support system to help them do it, said Kathy Farrell, coordinator of the mentoring program.

“You have done what to takes to get to this point here,” Farrell told the teens. “Now we want to see you get to the next point and the next point.”
Staff writer Amanda Stewart can be reached at 703-878-8014.