News - Local News - Graduations

POSTED: Wednesday, Jun. 04, 2008

From foster kid to Georgetown U.

Squalicum senior wins prestigious scholarships, joins elite society

BELLINGHAM — It’s only three days until graduation and Squalicum High senior Sara Prendergast is more than ready for a break.

The 18-year-old has worked herself ragged for the last four years, volunteering hundreds of hours for community organizations, singing in the school choir, playing basketball and tennis, and earning high enough grades on a rigorous course load to earn two national scholarships and acceptance to Georgetown University.

“My whole little world feels like a puzzle, and for the last year or so it’s been slowly fitting together,” she said.

But the road to success hasn’t been easy. Prendergast is one of a family of seven kids, and since she was young, they have been scattered throughout the region in the foster care system.

But Prendergast partially credits that aspect of her life for her accomplishments.

“I wanted to be so far away from where my parents were,” she said. “I knew if I worked really hard, I would have options.”

As a kid, Prendergast said, she dreamed of being successful and leading a different life. Her aunt, Andrea Shenton, told her she would “do great things,” even if other people didn’t think she could rise above her upbringing, which included parents with criminal drug problems.

“I just got motivated … to prove people wrong,” she said. “I just kind of held myself to a higher standard.”

That high standard helped her to win two competitive national scholarships, neither of which she thought she’d receive.

The first is the Horatio Alger Association’s scholarship, given to only 100 people in the country. It provides Prendergast with $20,000 for college, health care, a laptop, a printer and a “lifetime of networking and connections.” At the scholarship ceremony earlier this year in Washington, D.C., she met some of the most influential people in the U.S., including Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and astronaut Buzz Aldrin, both of whom are members of the association.

“It’s like giving us this world of opportunities and all we have to do is use it to the best of our abilities,” she said. “No matter what you want to do, someone will be there to help you.”

More recently, Prendergast was awarded the Gates Millennium Scholarship, which covers all unmet financial need for college.

“Getting those scholarships is not just about money, but about a mile marker,” she said. “OK, I did it, now I have to keep going.”

Prendergast has shared her story with other teens, serving as a foster youth advocate for the Department of Children and Family Services and as peermentor through the Mockingbird Society in Seattle.

But Prendergast is ready to move to a place where she’s unknown and can study and learn about whatever she wants.

At Georgetown University, which is her “perfect dream of a college experience,” Prendergast will be in the School of Foreign Services, where she will study international relations and foreign affairs.

“I just think that no matter who you are and what you want in life, you have to go get it,” she said. “You can’t just sit back and let things happen.”