Scholarship allows sisters to turn loss into a path forward

Karla Alvarez graduated from New Mexico State University on a Saturday in May. By Monday, she was at work.

The accounting and finance graduate had landed an internship with a copper company, and when that ended this summer, the company offered her a full-time position. She is now going through the hiring process, ready to put the degree she just earned to work.

Her younger sister, Alexa, is still a junior at NMSU. Her destination isn't quite as defined, but the direction is becoming clearer. She has discovered a passion for writing and talks about someday writing for a magazine, perhaps one covering fashion.

Karla’s time in college is becoming a career. For Alexa, it has become a place to discover what she wants that career to be. There was a time when neither sister knew whether college would be possible at all.

Their father died in a work-related accident in 2018, when Karla was a freshman in high school and Alexa was just entering middle school.

“He was the best father me and my sister could ask for,” Alexa said. “He always worked. And he always worked because he wanted to be able to provide for our family and everything that we needed.”

His death left the family grieving and struggling financially. Money went toward the funeral and keeping the family's home but for two girls still trying to get through school, the impact wasn't only financial. They missed about two weeks of classes after their father's death but eventually, school expected them back.

For Alexa, going back meant returning to a middle school where her grief soon became public. A teacher told her classmates why she had been gone, she said, and word spread. Then came bullying.

Alexa remembers being ridiculed, pushed and challenged to fights by girls she didn't even know. She was also grieving for her father and there were days she couldn't keep those emotions out of the classroom.

She would cry. A teacher would send her to the counselor. Then she would return to class, only to sometimes find herself crying again 30 minutes later.

Her grades suffered.

The sisters eventually began seeing a therapist at school, something they now say helped them work through their father's death. At the time, however, even getting that help came with another uncomfortable reminder that other students knew something was different.

Classmates noticed when they were pulled from class and asked questions the girls didn't necessarily want to answer.

“You know, it gets easier,” Karla said. “You just have to live it. You have to get through it.”

Alexa eventually found another way to move forward. When representatives from Early College High School visited her middle school, they talked about academics and the opportunity to earn college credits. Alexa saw something else. Not many of the students around her seemed interested in applying.

“I thought that if I applied and if I got in, I wouldn't have to see them again,” she said. “I would start a new, I guess, identity.”

It worked. She made new friends who didn't know everything that had happened to her. Some of them, she said, may still not know. Years later, Alexa is no longer looking for a place where people don't know her story. She's learning how to tell the stories of others.

“Thanks to this scholarship and this opportunity, I was able to just really find out what I'm very passionate about, which is writing,” she said.

The scholarship she refers to came through what is now Kids' Chance of New Mexico, an organization that provides higher education assistance to children whose parents have been catastrophically or fatally injured in work-related accidents.

Karla learned about the opportunity as she was finishing high school. An employee at the Social Security office and one of her father's friends both suggested it. She was already applying for opportunities without really knowing how college was going to work financially.

“We really didn't have any money,” she said. “We had to spend everything on the funeral, on our house, because we were about to lose it.”

She researched the program and applied. The assistance ultimately did much more than pay tuition. The scholarship can help recipients with costs including housing, utilities and food, support that followed Karla through college and is now helping Alexa pursue her degree.

“Even if they had given it to me for a semester, I would be grateful,” Karla said. “It would have just given me time to figure out what I was going to do. It really gave me hope.”

Alexa didn’t have to discover the scholarship program for herself, but she had also grown up watching her family struggle financially after her father's death. Before knowing what opportunities would be available to her, she had begun imagining a future that might not include college.

“I didn't think I was going to be able to continue my education,” she said. “I was just kind of preparing myself. Okay, I'm just going to at least get, like, a little local job.”

Instead, she is at NMSU, developing her writing and thinking about magazines. Karla is preparing to begin her career. Their paths haven't been identical, just as their experiences after losing their father weren't identical. But both sisters connect where they are now to the father who isn't here to see it.

“He wanted us to get an education,” Karla said. “And I wanted that for myself, too.”

Alexa sees continuing her education as a way to make both of her parents proud. The help they received has changed something else about how the sisters look at their futures. They want to give some of it back.

Kids' Chance of New Mexico has awarded more than $1.7 million in scholarship assistance to 84 New Mexico students since 2011. Its fundraising efforts include the annual Toby Wright Memorial Golf Tournament, scheduled for Sept. 10 at Sandia Golf Resort.

To Karla and Alexa, the people raising that money aren't simply donors to an organization. They are people who helped their family at a point when the sisters needed it most. Karla said receiving the scholarship also introduced her to the stories of other young people whose families had experienced workplace tragedies.

Now that she has a degree and is preparing for a full-time job, Karla is beginning to think about being on the other side of that equation. The father they remember was a man who worked hard because he wanted to provide for his family. After his death, other people helped provide opportunities for his daughters that their family feared might be beyond their reach.

One daughter has now walked across a college graduation stage and is beginning her career. The other is still in the classroom, discovering what she wants to do with hers. And both are thinking about the day when they can do for another family what someone once did for them.