Funding keeps US dream alive

As Rachel Reid got ready to take part in the great American tradition of throwing the graduation mortarboard in the air, she couldn't have been more nervous.
Tradition has it that catching your own will bring bad luck and that's something her family doesn't need.
Rachel is the oldest of the four Reid children. Matisse, 8, is the second-youngest and something of a celebrity around these parts, mainly because some of her own parts don't work, but also because she's managed to capture hearts with her tightly coiled curls and kooky personality.
Born with a rare condition that means she can't eat and desperately needs a multiple organ transplant, she's the Reid child everyone knows.
Rachel, Kalani and little Fraanz went along for the ride when the Napier family travelled to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to give their sister the best chance at getting a transplant two-and-a-half years ago.
They've made sacrifices, settled into American life and held their breath when each of the eight false-alarm transplant calls came through.
``I won't believe it until she actually goes into surgery now,'' Rachel said from her grandparents' Napier home yesterday.
So the amount of pressure the graduate was putting on herself to catch anybody's cap but her own was understandable.
But as the caps were flung into the air, Rachel didn't put up her hands to catch any.
Instead she waited until her own hit the ground and then she picked it up _ in American graduation ceremonies that's also considered to be good luck.
Rachel's future has hung in the balance a bit as her parents, Wayne and Jodee, are unable to work in the US because they have to wait as visitors.
So there hasn't been the money for Rachel to study at an American college.
To get into a New Zealand university, she would have to apply as an international student and her top choices of Auckland and Victoria weren't prepared to take her as she was one point below the required academic level.
It was by luck, perhaps, then that a family friend in the US suggested they talk to a certain Father Hogan who is entrusted with money from academics and distributes it to the students he sees as deserving.
The Reid family met Father Hogan and, over dinner, explained their situation to him.
Then a week before Rachel flew back to Napier, she heard the good news.
She is the recipient of the Chancellor Scholarship _ an honour that will provide $25,000 towards her study costs at private university Duquesne each year for four years.
``It's unbelievable really,'' Rachel said in her new American accent.
It's a dream for the family, which was facing being split up as Rachel had decided to work in New Zealand and assess her study options in her homeland.
But with Duquesne just half an hour from their family home and close to the Children's Hospital, where the family spends a lot of time, the move to campus is going to be a dream.
She will now start her studies in communications when she returns to Pittsburgh in three weeks, although it's still not going to be easy.
The scholarship will leave her short US$12,000 ($18,643) each year and the only place she can earn the money is on campus.
``And they take state-paid students before they take internationals,'' Rachel says.
Still she has learnt from her parents how to overcome adversity and will be doing all she can to make it work at the prestigious university.
``My mum is so optimistic. She said,'You never know what could happen', so I applied for her really,'' Rachel says.
``We already miss each other and I've only been here less than a week. She said at the airport,'Thank God you're not going there to study, I'm already tearing up'. We are really close.''