From teen mom to college graduate

The Hope and a Future Project, which seeks to empower teen moms and dads by helping them graduate college, is currently accepting applications. 

The program is open to single teen parents currently attending college or who will attend college in the fall of 2018. The application deadline has recently been extended to April 30 and can be found online at http://hopeandafutureproject.org/home/. 

Below is a May 2017 story on Namire Wanamaker, who graduated from Delaware Technical Community College last year with the local nonprofit's help. 

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She was 17, four months pregnant and in danger of losing her unborn child. 

Namire Wanamaker, now 21, hadn't planned for any of this. She was a good student, on the honor roll at A.I. duPont High School and on track for college. 

When she found out she was pregnant several weeks earlier, she had laughed in disbelief, reluctant to believe that after all her hard work she would be reduced to a statistic and unable to imagine that just four years later she'd graduate from Delaware Technical Community College with the help of a local nonprofit, the Hope and a Future Project.

"(Without them) I wouldn't be in college. Period," Namire said.

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Instead, in that moment, she could only see the negative. 

"I thought it was a joke," Wanamaker said. "I didn't really know what I wanted to do because I was so young." 

Despite that, she decided not to get an abortion. Then, four months later, after an altercation with an abusive boyfriend, she went into labor early and almost lost the baby. 

Doctors would manage to postpone the birth, but Wanamaker, already high-risk, had to stop going to school and stay on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy. 

Committed to graduating and getting her diploma, the 17-year-old sat at home frustrated. She wanted to keep her baby, but she also wanted to be able to provide for it. How could she do that if she didn't graduate? Would she be able to go to college? 

"I didn't want bed rest," Wanamaker said. "I wanted to be in school." 

Defying the odds

According to surveys, among high school dropouts, nearly 30 percent of girls cite pregnancy or parenthood as a key reason they left school. 

In 2015, almost 230,000 babies were born to teen moms, according to the Centers for Disease Control. The birth rate among black teens is almost twice as high as it is among those that are white, with low-income teens at even higher risk of teen pregnancy.

Only 51 percent of teen moms earn a high school diploma, according to the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. And only 38 percent of teen girls who have a child before they turn 18 graduate. Fewer than 2 percent finish college by age 30. 

In Delaware, the Delaware Adolescent Program, Inc., provides pregnant teens a way to continue their education while receiving pre-natal care, but sometimes teens don't find out about the program until it is too late. 

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Those were the statistics facing Wanamaker when she got pregnant in 2013. And they were statistics she was determined to beat. 

"It was tough," she said. 

But when her doctors pulled her out of school, she made arrangements with her teachers to continue her coursework from home. She quickly developed a routine, picking up homework assignments and returning them when they were complete. 

On Nov. 16, 2013, she gave birth to her son, Khamire, and in 2014, she returned to school for the last few months of her senior year. 

Her mother, Lekeisha, stayed home with the baby. 

"She maintained her grade-point average," Lekeisha Wanamaker said. "It was hard. She had to be taken out of school, she had to go on bed rest for the remainder of her pregnancy, and that was very hard for her because my daughter is not a keep still kind of person. But she did it." 

Namire Wanamaker graduated that spring and almost immediately got a full-time job, her mom said. Though her parents tried to convince Namire to go to a four-year college, somewhere away from home, she refused. She wanted to stay with her son.

"I wanted her to have the experience of going away for college and have her live on her own for a while," Lekeisha Wanamaker said. "But she wouldn't leave him. She said he was her responsibility." 

It would have been easy for Namire to leave it at that, to work to provide for herself and her son. But despite her reluctance to move away, she did want to get a college degree and enrolled in Delaware Technical Community College in time for the next fall. 

The only problem: Namire soon found out she couldn't afford it. 

Hope and a future 

Luckily, Danielle Martin Moffett had made it her mission to help young women like Namire only a few months before. 

The inspiration stemmed from her daughter, who like Namire had gotten pregnant at a young age. It was only a few months after she went to Wesley College that she gave her parents the news, Moffett said. 

“What happened after that is just all the emotional things that normally occur," she said. "She still wanted to go to college, but she wasn't sure how to do it." 

Moffett said the family was able to help her daughter figure things out. She got her associate's degree and is getting ready to graduate from Wilmington University this year thanks to her family's support. 

Moffett, after aiding her daughter, thought to herself in 2012, "if we did this for our own daughter, why not others?" 

After discovering there weren't any college-oriented programs for young moms or teens in the Wilmington area, she decided to start the Hope and a Future Project, which, with the help of a high school guidance counselor, Namire found her senior year. 

The program targets single or teen moms and teaches them practical skills, like parenting, financial literacy, how to get a job, how to find child care and more. It also provides mentoring. 

"We want to make sure they know we are here for them," Moffett said. 

Which means being there for them financially, too. Many single moms choose not to go to college because they can afford it, Moffett said, which is why when Namire told her she didn't have the money to go to college anymore, Moffett knew she had to help. 

"I told her, 'Stop. You are going to go to college,'" Moffett said. "Because that's why this organization is here." 

“Namire to me is kind of one of our scholars who is kind of like the embodiment of hope.”

Teen mom to college graduate

To this day, Namire isn't sure exactly how much the Hope and a Future Project has contributed to her education. 

The nonprofit paid for her first semester of college, she said, and has helped pay for textbooks and other supplies. They've also given her rides to school and were there to cheer her on when she graduated in May with two associate's degrees: One in accounting and one in general business. 

"There have been times when I didn't reach out to them, so they'd reach out to me," she said. "They were there for me." 

Her parents have been a huge source of support, too, she said, and have been instrumental in taking care of her now 3-year-old son. 

Lekiesha, who babysat Khamire until he was old enough to go to preschool, said she couldn't be prouder of her daughter. 

“Proud isn’t even the word," she said. "I am amazed at her tenacity, I am amazed at how even though she did have a few blocks, that she didn’t stop. She didn’t want to be a statistic, and I don’t think she is.”

Tenacious is probably the best word to describe Namire, her family says. 

"I think she's strong," her cousin Deshjuan Triplett said. "I don't know too many teen moms who've accomplished so much, especially in so little time." 

For her first year of college, Namire walked to the Delaware Tech campus for classes because she did not have a car. The next fall she took the bus. She worked nights as a security guard, which meant less time with her son, and is now actively pursuing a job in the financial sector. 

Part-way through her college career, Khamire was diagnosed with autism, Namire said. Today, at age 3, he is nonverbal. 

But his love for his mom, though he cannot voice it, is palpable. Sometimes he'll walk up to her and just put his hand on her face. 

And Namire's love for her son is beyond description, Lakeisha said.

"She is such a good mother, and her heart is so much with her son," she said. “It reminds me so much of when I had my two. When they’re together, they have eyes only for each other.”

Much of what Namire has done has been for her baby, the young mother said. He's the reason she never gave up. 

"There's been times where I really didn't care anymore," she said. "But I still went and did it."

"I'm determined. If feel like I had a lot of struggles, but .... for me, this showed me my strength, it showed me how strong I was." 

Helping teen moms

The Hope and a Future Project, started in 2013, currently serves eight single mothers, though it is open to single fathers, as well. This year, it has three college graduates. 

"And we have reached the point where we should be able to grow," Moffett said. 

In an effort to raise money and expand the program, Hope and a Future is holding its third annual Arising Stars Benefit Gala at 6:30 p.m. June 9 at the University of Delaware's John M. Clayton Hall Conference Center. The semi-formal event will include dinner, dancing and a silent auction. Wilmington Mayor Mike Purzycki will give the keynote address. 

Proceeds will help fund college scholarships, mentoring services and life skills training. 

Tickets and more information are available at www.hopeandafutureproject.org.

Contact Jessica Bies at (302) 324-2881 or jbies@delawareonline.com. Follow her on Twitter @jessicajbies.