This month, there was news worth stopping to celebrate.
Two community health volunteers supported through AMOS’ Seeds of Hope Scholarship Program have graduated from college. They are now psychologists.
For Mayqueling and Glennis, graduation day was filled with joy, emotion, and gratitude — the culmination of years of effort, sacrifice, and unshakeable faith in something they could not yet see but refused to stop reaching for. But their achievement is more than a personal milestone. It is a testament to what becomes possible when opportunity finds people who are already devoted to serving others.
A promise made before her son was born
Through the Seeds of Hope Scholarship Program, AMOS supports community health volunteers who want to continue their education and deepen the ways they serve their communities. These are already trusted leaders — women and men who accompany families, share health knowledge, and help connect people with care. The scholarship does not create their commitment. It simply gives it more room to grow.
For Mayqueling, the road to graduation was anything but straightforward.
Midway through her studies, she became pregnant with her second child. She made herself a promise.
“During my studies I became pregnant with my second child. But I promised myself pregnancy would not stop my dreams,” she shared. “The only day I missed class was the day I gave birth.”
In the months that followed, she brought her baby with her to class. She showed up — for her education, for her family, for the future she was building one day at a time.
“I am committed to my family and their wellbeing, but I am also committed to becoming a professional and helping many people,” she said. “Some may see the challenges, and truthfully, there were many — but amid everything, we prevailed and made it.”
On graduation day, two moments stopped her in her tracks.
Her oldest daughter told her she also wants to go to college when she grows up. And the little boy she had carried through her studies — the one she was pregnant with when she sat in those classrooms — proudly put on her graduation stole.
Seeing him wear it, she was overwhelmed. It was the whole journey in a single image: the classes attended while pregnant, the early months with a newborn in tow, and now this — standing together on the other side.
“I am proud to be a role model for her and other little girls in my community,” Mayquening said.
Her story is a reminder that education does not only change one life. It opens a door in the imagination of a child. It tells girls that their dreams are not too big. It plants something that keeps growing long after the diploma is framed.
A dream she almost stopped believing in
For Glennis, this moment almost never came — or so she feared
“I am 39 years old and thought my dream of becoming a professional was never going to happen,” she shared. “I still can’t believe this is real.”
But she also knows she did not get here alone. She sees her graduation as the result of many people walking alongside her: AMOS staff, supporters, her family — and Mayquening, the friend and fellow scholar who became her companion through every hard stretch of the journey.
“Mayquening and I encouraged one another throughout our studies, and we relied on each other during hardships,” Glennis said. “It was a great experience to share the college journey with her and celebrate becoming psychologists.”
Their friendship was not a side note to their achievement. It was part of the fuel that kept them going.
And now, they are turning that same energy outward — toward other Seeds of Hope recipients who are still in the middle of their own journeys.
“We are encouraging other recipients of the Scholarship so that they can see that if we could do it, then they also can,” Glennis said.
A new chapter, a wider reach
Today, Mayqueling and Glennis are stepping into something new. Alongside continuing to serve their neighbors as community health volunteers, both will be working with an organization that supports children with disabilities and their families.
Mayquening has found a deep passion for working with children. Glennis is drawn to supporting adolescents and adults. Both are carrying everything they have learned — their training, their lived experience, their compassion — into spaces where families are waiting for someone to show up with care and steadiness.
“We received an incredible blessing,” Mayqueling said. “Now, we want to be a blessing for others.”
That is the heart of Seeds of Hope
A scholarship becomes more than financial support. It becomes a path. It becomes proof — for a daughter watching her mother cross a stage, for a 39-year-old who almost gave up on herself, for every volunteer wondering if it is too late to dream bigger.
To every AMOS supporter who makes moments like this possible: thank you.
