Ella
The Hart Foundation's scholarship gala had grown considerably since that first small class of twelve, and standing at the podium three years after I'd taken over as director, I looked out over a room filled with over two hundred former recipients, their families, and enough donors to fund the program's expansion into two additional cities by the following spring.
"When my parents built this Foundation," I told the crowd, "they believed that opportunity shouldn't depend on circumstances nobody chooses for themselves. I lost them before I fully understood what that meant. I lost myself, for a while, before I found my way back to it. Tonight, looking at this room, I think they'd recognize exactly what we've built here, and I think they'd be proud."
Applause carried through the room, a
