The
POWER
GIVING
of
Photo courtesy of Brian Campbell of BCS-Photography.com
Experience fuels future teacher’s persistence
E
riauna Stratton is busy. Very busy. But she
is OK with that. Stratton graduated college
in May with a dream of teaching elementary
school in Louisville. She spent her summer making
connections and searching, but thought she may
need to spend a year as a substitute if she couldn’t
find an open position. That changed just a week
before Jefferson County classes started. Hartstern
Elementary called, offering a position teaching
kindergarten.
With a week to get her classroom and curriculum
prepared for 23 young students, Stratton was in a
whirlwind. But, already, she seems to have hit her
stride. One recent day, she said goodbye to her
students, then paused for an interview, all the while
getting her room ready for an open house later
that evening. She is where she has always wanted
to be and she just doesn’t stop. That fact is not a
surprising one, based on her track record in college.
Raised in a single parent household, Stratton knew
she wouldn’t be able to afford college without the
help of scholarships. She excelled in her studies
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I wouldn’t have been able to
make those trips without the
power of donations.
and has logged countless volunteer hours for
organizations such as Planned Parenthood, Big
Brothers/Big Sisters, and Amachi, a mentoring
program for kids who have an incarcerated parent.
She also traveled the state as an ambassador for the
UK College of Education and as a Derby Princess.
Her passions didn’t go unnoticed, and scholarship
funding soon came her way in the form o