At just five months old, Hannah’s life changed forever. Her father, a police officer with the Las Vegas Police Department, was injured in a horrific accident on duty — just two days before Hannah’s first Christmas. The accident left him a paraplegic and changed the course of her family’s lives forever.
Hannah grew up with a different view of paraplegia than most children her age. To her, her father’s disability was simply his way of life. Of course, Hannah admitted it did change her family’s life, yet, she shared that “we still are as close as ever and the accident “makes my family dynamic what we are.”
Growing up, Hannah dreamed of becoming a lawyer. By the time she graduated high school, she already knew she wanted to go to law school after college. The only problem was the cost.
“I kind of chose to stay local for college since it would be more cost-efficient, and I could go into law school with a clean slate,” Hannah recalled.
Enter Kids’ Chance of Nevada (KCNV), a newer Kids’ Chance organization founded in 2018.
“I was actually Nevada’s first recipient,” Hannah explained. “They approached me because they knew my parents from the workers’ comp industry.”
As the first recipient of a KCNV scholarship, Hannah’s connection to the scholarship and the group is unique. Thanks to her parents’ rapport with the people founding KCNV, she had the opportunity to introduce others to the program that changed her life and the lives of many others.
“Being the first recipient, I’m also on the board now as a student council member,” Hannah reported. Hannah, as a member of the KCNV board, has been able to encourage and connect other students in need with the organization. She takes her position as a Kids’ Chance Ambassador seriously, focusing on welcoming other kids in similar familial situations to the group.
“It has a very community aspect, like a very community feel,” she said. Through the years, being a part of the Kids’ Chance community has given her support in more ways than expected, from a monetary scholarship to a loving community invested in her progress.
Thanks to the support she has received through Kids’ Chance, Hannah is now well on her way to law school. She graduated debt-free from undergrad and was able to start law school with a clean slate, just as she’d hoped for.
“[Kids’ Chance] has been a huge and integral foundation in making my dream of becoming a lawyer real,” she beamed.
