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Stephanie Kelly never thought she’d get into the University of Pennsylvania. The 2011 Neumann-Goretti grad, 1736 S. 10th St., didn’t think the fact that she ranked No. 1 in her class, or that she was valedictorian mattered much among the competition she imagined would be vying for the same seat in the prestigious school’s nursing program.
But when her likely letter arrived in the spring — three days before the deadline to accept the full-scholarship she had been offered from Drexel University — her vision began to change.
When she was in grade school, before her dad passed away four years ago from lung cancer, he used to take Kelly on drives here and there.
“One day we took a ride to Penn’s campus just to walk around. My dad said, “‘this is where you should go to school; this is where you belong.’
“I thought of my dad when I got accepted and remembered that moment,” she said.
The college freshman, who has received grants and scholarships from Penn, Comcast, Walmart and the Big 33, will find out Sunday if she’ll receive additional funding through the Vendemmia Foundation scholarship program which helps to advance and preserve Italian culture and heritage. The organization also provided financial support during her four years of high school.
“It was my eighth-grade teacher at St. Nicholas of Tolentine grade school, Miss Grimditch, who first told me about the Vendemmia Scholarship program for students from the four South Philadelphia zip codes [19145 through 19148],” Kelly said. “I had no idea that something as fun-sounding as a wine festival also provided academic scholarships.”
Whether or not she receives one of the 10, $4,000 college scholarships will not change Kelly’s plans of one day entering the medical field. Serendipitously, yet inadvertently, her dad also influenced this course of study.
“When my dad was sick, I would monitor his responses to the various medications, then research them online to see exactly how they worked,” Kelly, a resident of the 900 block of Morris Street, said.
She was not bothered by administering medications to her dad, or handling any of the unpleasant tasks one could imagine occur during cancer treatments.
“That’s when I began to think I had what it takes to become a nurse,” Kelly said.
When asked if any other South Philly experiences influenced her education so far, Kelly noted how she is the brunt of some jokes because of it.
“It cracks me up that some of my new friends are here from far away places like Taiwan, Ireland and Canada — and they tease me for being the one with the accent,” she said with a laugh.
When asked if there are any downsides to her new and exciting college venture, Kelly noted the reading assignments are overwhelming and keep her up late. So when she returns home to South Philly on weekends to visit with her mom and grandmother, she does more sleeping and eating than anything else.
“As long as they don’t mind it, (and they don’t) life is great,” Kelly said. SPR
Contact the South Philly Review at editor@southphillyreview.com.
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