SHELBY, N.C. — A Shelby teen, who was abandoned by her parents and was left to work as a janitor at her high school, is headed to Harvard.
Dawn Loggins' story is gaining national attention after turning her life around from vagrant to victory in one year.
Loggins said she knew she wanted to attend college since she was 12 years old.
Last summer when Loggins was 17 years old, she attended the prestigious N.C. Governor's School in Raleigh. But when she got out, her family was nowhere to be found, the Shelby Star reports.
Loggins said her parents went to Tennessee and never returned, her grandmother was in a homeless shelter and her brother was staying with friends in Hendersonville.
The teen said she bounced around friends' homes to sleep on couches and sometimes even the floor. She called it "couch hopping." She would clean dishes and sweep floors to repay her friends' families for the hospitality.
Loggins, now 18, works as a janitor at Burns High School to provide for herself.
Loggins is now enrolled in advanced placement and honors classes at Burns and receiving A's. She said her dream was to attend an Ivy League school.
"When I was younger I looked around at my family and I saw the neglect, the drug abuse, the bad choices and I saw my family living from paycheck to paycheck and I just made a decision for myself that I was not going to end up like my parents," Loggins said.
Her dream can now be realized. Loggins is getting some scholarship money to attend Harvard.
After all she has been through; Loggins can now say dreams do come true and giving up is not an option.
"No excuses. It depends on you and no one else," said Loggins.
To read Dawn's complete story, visit the Shelby Star.
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