A light through the shadows
Published Tuesday August 26th, 2008
Gretzky Scholarship and perseverance help visually impaired Jacksonville teen see a bright future
Within the shadows are glimmers of light.
And Danica Ketch’s “glimmers” are helping to make her dream come true.
The 18-year-old suffers from a nonprogressive eye condition which means she will see shadows and experience minimal colour loss for the rest of her life. At the age of five, the Jacksonville resident was diagnosed with optic atrophy, which causes deterioration of the optic nerve.
“In my case, I am missing several fibres causing my acuity to be 20/200,” she explains. “So, something you see at 200 feet, I see at 20. Glasses, however, will not help improve my vision ... At this time there is no medical treatment or correction.”
Danica will continue to cope, as she has throughout her life to date, but not without support. And the province- wide network of support Danica has found may also be needed for her 13-year-old brother Dakota. He, too, has the hereditary condition as it was passed down through their Danish ancestors on their father’s side of the family tree.
Danica said her family, friends, the Atlantic Provinces Special Education Authority (APSEA) and the Canadian National Institute for the Blind (CNIB) are always there to help.
Currently, the teen is seeking support to earn a post-secondary education. Danica graduated from Woodstock High School in June and will study kinesiology for four years starting this September at Fredericton’s University of New Brunswick (UNB).
Her plan to become an occupational therapist will take her to Dalhousie University for two more years.
Where tuition for the UNB course is approximately $18,000 a year, Danica was afraid the cost would be too much.
She said her first thought was, “Do I even want to go to school anymore?” Danica’s mother, Joyce, recalled her daughter questioning whether a postsecondary education was feasible.
“How can anyone afford to get an education?” Joyce said her daughter asked. “How am I going to pay this back?” Joyce urged Danica to pursue her education and not to worry because “the Lord is always going to provide for you.”
Danica put a lot of time and effort into applying for scholarships. When her hard work seemed to go unnoticed, the teen began to feel the application process was a waste of valuable time. That is until recently, when she received a wealth of support from an unexpected source – the Gretzky family.
After writing an essay, My Disabilities VS. My Abilities; obtaining high school transcripts; collecting reference letters; and completing 40 volunteer hours through AWANA at the Jacksonville United Baptist Church, Danica earned the Walter and Wayne Gretzky Scholarship.
At $3,000, the funding provided a glimmer of light in her shadowy world.
“I felt relieved,” she said, noting the scholarship is open to all blind or visually impaired students across Canada. “This is a big help. I really needed this.”
Walter Gretzky personally called Danica. Joyce said she thought someone had died by the way her big-eyed daughter covered her mouth with her hand.
The speechless teen handed the phone to her mother, who was overjoyed by the news.
“I don’t think I’ll ever say anything bad about scholarships again,” Danica told her mother. “They’re worth filling out.”
Danica submitted a powerful essay to receive the Gretzky scholarship and also read a moving speech when she competed for the Miss Woodstock crown.
In both her presentations, she emphasized her disability gave her the ability to be the creative, determined, mature, responsible, helpful, loving, trustworthy, optimistic, caring and outgoing person she is today.
“Facing the fact that I was different from my peers was always something that I did not want to face,” she stated in writing. “Dealing with my future finally caught up with me when I turned 15. I was so overwhelmed with the idea of having to do everything by myself that I went into a depression that required medication. The thought of being accountable for all of my needs was more than I could handle. Just finding the right bus at the end of the school day would scare me to the point of tears and discourage me from going back.
“It was at this stage of my life that I had to make a choice: deal with this and make the best of it or let it destroy me...
“As I grew older my desire to be independent and stand on my own two feet made me realize that the large text books and the magnifiers that I thought made me different from my friends were the exact things that I needed to help me be more like them in the end.
By using these materials it helped me keep up with my studies and showed me that my disability didn’t conquer me, I conquered my disability.”
Danica’s mother said her daughter’s confidence is a result of the support she’s received from family, friends and various organizations, which help to provide a sense of stability for people suffering with blindness or visual impairment.
“I want to thank APSEA, CNIB and the Gretzky family for supporting Danica and making her dreams come true,” said Joyce.
“Without them, let’s face it, how could the kids manage?” Her daughter answered her question by simply stating, “we couldn’t.”
Danica also received a $1,500 scholarship through APSEA; two UNB scholarships totalling $750 for obtaining a high school average of 83.3 per cent; and a $625 scholarship through The Provincial Artisans Bursary Fund Committee.
More News
Search Articles
More CE Network Sites & Partners:
