Houston Teen Raises $150,000 After Using College Savings to Help Pay Her Mother’s Rent
by Cedric 'BIG CED' Thornton

February 11, 2021

Houston Teen Raises $150,000 After Using College Savings to Help Pay Her Mother’s Rent

A Houston teen was in the news earlier this month after giving up her college savings in order to help her mother avoid eviction. And now that news of the teenager’s sacrifice has spread, she has been getting an outpouring of financial blessings because of her good deed.

According to ABC7 News, Alondra Carmona made headlines after using her college savings to pay for her mother’s rent, after finding out that her mother wasn’t working and had been hiding it from her family.

Carmona set up a GoFundMe page to try to raise the $75,000 needed for her to pay expenses for her upcoming school year at Barnard College in New York City.

“Hi everyone, my name is Alondra Carmona and I am a senior at Yes Prep East End in Houston, TX. My dreams came true on December 14th when I was accepted into the Ivy League women’s institution, Barnard College. I have worked tirelessly to look for programs and opportunities that my small school could not provide. This motivation led me to attend a 6 week research internship for cervical cancer at Rice University. While at Rice, I found that I wanted to pursue an M.D./PhD. This secured my thoughts of studying under STEM and research. All of the programs I attended were a product of my enthusiasm for learning more about medicine and science.

“I come from a single parent household and my mom worked everyday to pay rent. In February of 2020, my mom broke her ankle and was not able to work. Come March, the coronavirus started which added to the financial problems we already had. Today, I found out that my mom has not had a job for 3 months and hid it from us. She owes two months of rent and will most likely get evicted in March. All of my college savings will go to paying the rent that we are behind on. As much as I dream of going to Barnard College, it is not looking promising right now. I am turning to this as a last resort because Barnard will not be able to change my financial aid package. I am absolutely in love with Barnard and it has been my dream since I was 15 years old. Thank you for your time. Anything helps :)”

So far people have donated close to $150,000 to her cause.


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