BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) - LSU junior Wynter Allen will be recognized alongside first lady Melania Trump on Saturday at Tiger Stadium when LSU plays Alabama.
Allen is a recipient of a $10,000 scholarship funded through the first lady’s “Fostering the Future” program. The scholarship is part of a $5 million permanent endowment fund to LSU for students who have been through the foster care system, according to officials.
“I mean, it’s exciting, it’s nice to be able to meet the person who’s changed my life and hopefully continues to,” Allen said. “Just to be able to thank her and shake her hand, it’s as simple as that for me.”
Entering foster care at 16
Allen was raised in California and entered foster care at age 16. He spoke about the experience in an interview Friday.
“It’s just, like, life’s difficult. And when bad things happen, sometimes it just feels like there’s no way out of it,” Allen said. “And then you go on down to the foster care system, and they’re telling you that your life is going to change forever. Then just in a blink of an eye everything is changing, you’ve got court dates, lawyers, you’re away from your family and you just kind of think, how does this get better?”
With college approaching, Allen decided to take control of his own life.
“I always wanted to work just as hard as everybody else,” Allen said. “I never gave anybody any excuses, no matter if it’s an assignment with a date; I would tell a teacher I would turn it in at the same time as everybody else. I don’t need more time on this project or whatever. I’m going to work just as hard.”
“I didn’t let anything that happened dictate my life; I didn’t let it distract me; I didn’t let it throw me off of the path I wanted to go down,” Allen said.
Allen graduated high school.
Scholarship and plans
Earlier this semester, while attending LSU, Allen received a message about the scholarship. He was eligible and applied for the funding.
“Probably in the next few days got the email back like hey you received the scholarship, $10,000,” Allen said. “And that’s just a huge weight off of my shoulders.”
Allen plans to graduate from LSU with a degree in journalism. He said the funding will help with potential student debt.
Allen also had a message for children and teens in foster care.
“The system, it’s hard to navigate; I’m not going to say the system is perfect,” Allen said. “You’ve got to keep going, there’s no time to stop, there’s light at the end of that tunnel.”
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