Karyn Johnson

It’s a cold, snowy Saturday, but two Saturdays from now, I’ll be doing my last-minute packing and preparations for my trip to the tropics – Panama.

Maybe it’s important to give a little context as to why this trip matters to me so much. 

College seemed unattainable to me growing up. I didn’t come from money. Even with financial aid, my parents would have found it very difficult to finance a college education for any of us. And yet, I wanted to go. Needed to go. 

I also wasn’t one of those students who had a perfect GPA and perfect standardized test scores. I was a reasonably good student. My ACT score was mediocre. (Yes, I took it only once.) However, I was offered a scholarship to attend community college, and I took it. I took whatever financial aid I could get. Even loans – whatever it took. There were times I even worked three part-time jobs while going to school. 

I was a much better college student than I was a high school student. I excelled in all my classes – even algebra, to my utter astonishment. That was my weakest subject in high school. 

After a year at community college, I was no longer sure I wanted to stay in college. I pursued other things for awhile and eventually found myself back in college two years later. I spent a year at Bowling Green State University before transferring to Ohio State. I finally graduated with my bachelor’s degree just a few months before turning 25.

I haven’t stopped learning since. I went to grad school twice. Finished one program. Didn’t finish another. But I love to learn and I know how empowering and life-changing education is. It was definitely the best investment I ever made in myself.

Now, about Panama – I saw the opportunity to help remove a barrier to education for a community in extreme poverty. This community has a school already, but there are no classrooms for kindergarten or first graders. There is no playground. By the time we get there, the classrooms will be framed out at the very least. We will help put in the concrete floors and paint the walls. We’ll build a playground. We’re giving these kids the chance at normalcy – these are kids that would otherwise grow up as laborers to help their families. These are kids who are hungry to learn. 

I see myself in them, a little bit. Our backgrounds, of course, couldn’t be more different. But I was the kid who constantly had my face buried in a book. Who wrote silly stories. Who was intellectually curious and loved learning. And if these kids want to learn, they should be able to learn. Every kid deserves that. It’s really that simple. 

I am currently $400 short of my fundraising goal and I am quickly running out of time. If you’ve read this far and feel compelled to support what I’m doing in Panama, I would be so grateful. No amount is too small.