In positive new today, a once homeless man, Wellington Mackey, has nabbed a full ride to Yale University. In 2003, Mackey faced hardship head-on when he was evicted from his apartment in the Bronx during the height of winter.
Now, 13 years later, Mackey is headed for an Ivy League education after graduating with an Associates from Westchester Community College and being honored with a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Transfer Scholarship, an award presented to just 85 students annually nationwide.
“You come to that point where you have to decide: are you going to run back home, or are you going to push forward?” Mackey told The Journal News. “I decided to push forward.”
Per Mackey’s award, he will receive up $40,000 per year to pursue a four-year diploma. “The fact that he was selected out of so many students really speaks to his character,” said Sandra Ramsay, director of scholarships at WCC. “His story and his academic record really resonated with the foundation.”
However, it was not an easy road. Not long after immigrating to New York from the Bahamas, at age 23, Mackey found it difficult to pay rent. He returned to his apartment one day in January to find the locks had been changed, forcing him to live on the streets of New York for several months.
“It was scary because I didn’t really know the culture much,” Mackey said. “It was a difficult time.”
As for his success, Mackey remains humble, crediting the people who helped him get back on his feet, like an elderly woman with whom he connected through his church who let him live with her in exchange for housework; and the Westchester branch of Tri-State Installations, a company that builds out office spaces, which offered Mackey his first full-time job, where he now serves as general manager.
Although Mackey’s story is one of trial and tribulation, it is also very inspirational. It’s stories like these that keep hope alive! Congrats to Mackey on such an amazing turnaround. We wish him the best of luck at Yale!
