We got the money for Fosalade’s expenses this Spring at Siena College. Thank you. I’ll send a check to Sue Silverstein – she was the one who first asked for help for Folasade – and she will distribute it to her.

The Army Of Good has never failed.

Thanks to new donor pledges and mail on the way, we will hit the $3,000 mark today. I’ll make sure she gets any overage if there is any. She will need it and spend it well.

Earlier this year, Fosalade Tijani, a refugee student and senior at Bishop Gibbons High School, got word that she had been accepted to the college of her choice, Siena College, just outside Albany. It was her first choice; she plans to be a doctor in return for the kindness she has been shown. Siena has a first-rate pre-med studies program.

That was the good news. Then came the bad news.

Reality sank in; she went to her teachers in tears. She couldn’t go to Siena, she said in an emotional meeting with the teachers who had helped her in every way to get that scholarship.

Although the high school was only a half hour away from Siena, her house was more than an hour away. She told them she had no choice but to go to another, closer school.

She and her teachers went over the maps a dozen times – Fosalade brought the bus routes and schedules and showed them to her teachers –  and (she went over them with me last Friday), and we all understood what she had to do and wanted to do – get herself a room in the dorms and pay the fees.

There was no way around it.

Fosalade knows the bus routes and problems well; she takes a long bus ride to and from Bishop Gibbons daily. It could only work if she lived on the campus, which meant room and board fees that tuition didn’t cover.

I am glad they asked the Army and me Of Good for help. My reasoning: if the family couldn’t pay for gas, they couldn’t help her with all the expenses she would need to go to college for the first time and have the peace of mind to do the work it takes to become a doctor. I know her; she can take it from her, and she will.

She’s already arranged for campus jobs past her freshmen year.

Any time I get low, I will think of this lovely and gifted human being on the way to becoming a pediatrician so she can help people like her, her brother, and her sister. We raised the money for her tuition these past few years; this is just an extension of the support she needs and deserves.

I hope this can do the same for the good people who rushed to help.

Now, she wants to take off on her own, and she will thrive and prosper, thanks to the support she received.

(While I was talking to Folasade Friday, Zinnia was getting loved up by her many admirers at Bishop Gibbons)

This is the true America, the nation I grew up loving and respecting. There were far too many obstacles for her to mount to go to Siena without living there—another blow for the haters and soul-dead who are now so much a part of American life. They are always around, hungry for blood.

She said she didn’t have a car, and her family couldn’t afford to buy one (most refugee families can’t)  or pay for the gas for a daily commute or car insurance. The pre-med classes she must take are scattered throughout the day – early morning and evening. She would have to commute twice.

Even if she could commute, the teachers found (they sat down with her and went over maps and bus routes) the commute would require two different bus routes, and the busses were often late or delayed by upstate New York winter weather.

“It would take her two busses and over an hour to get to Siena,” said Sue Silverstein, “and the same time to get home. That would be hours a day on the bus and what if there is a class in the morning and then not till evening? Would she do the bus thing twice? Plus, there is the cost of gas and insurance. We know her and how much she will benefit from the college experience, where she can study, work the campus job she wants to get, and give her all of the experience of college which she is entitled to and deserves.”

Sue is truly a saint or, at best, an angel. When she asks for help, I jump.  She really cares about her “children.”

Sue’s request was more than enough for me and the many wonderful people in the Army Of Good.

Beyond that, Fosalade, who has never been away from home,  would be deprived of the college experience – spending time with classmates, having time and a place to study, getting to know her teachers, getting some rest,  and preparing for the hard life of the medical students. When I suggested she might even have some time for fun, she looked at me in bewilderment as if she had no idea what I meant.

There are few things more satisfying than when we can help a child get a good chance at a whole and meaningful life. Like most of the refugee children, Sue works with this, and Fosolade has suffered enough. America, at its best, is all about promise.

“She was distraught,” one of the teachers told me, “she would come in to class in tears.” Blessings to those teachers; they decided to do something about it. Teachers are underpaid and overworked; the many good ones help their students in every possible way.

The teachers decided they needed outside help, and they asked me. That so humbles me. Sue and I have done this a thousand times. I am

We raised more than $8,000 for room and board feeds (she got a full tuition scholarship) in a few days, and a few days ago; I asked for $3,000 to pay for the expenses she will incur – textbooks, clothes, blankets, and pillows, etc., for her room computing support.

By this morning, I had raised over $2,000, and several angel donors popped up to pay the balance. I wish I could be there when Sue tells her we raised this money. She had no idea it was in the works.

Sue Silverstein and I have been working together for some years; she has done so much for so many children; it is an honor to know and become close friends. She is my best friend; I am proud to say. There couldn’t be a better one.

By tonight, the expense check will be on the way to her, and she will be accessible and able to set off on the most important journey of her life. Thanks to all of the angels who helped to get her there.