SAMPLE PROFILE — FILM SLOT
His story is coming to the series soon.
Garden Hills
DeAndre Whitlock grew up in Garden Hills, in an apartment where the heat worked most winters. His mother cleaned offices at night and slept while he got himself to school.
At Centennial he was good at math and quiet about it. Nobody in his family had finished college, and when the financial aid letters came his senior year, the gap between the award and the bill was $2,300. It might as well have been a million.
My mom cleaned offices at night. Every exam I passed, I passed for both of us.
The Degree
He got into the U of I and pieced the gap together with work-study, a scholarship from a Black alumni group, and a loan he's still paying down. He stocked shelves at a hardware store on weekends all four years.
He graduated with the first degree in his family and now works as a structural engineer. The beams he sizes hold up schools and clinics across central Illinois. His mother hung his diploma in her living room. He told her that was corny. It's still up.