HOUSTON – Hurricane Katrina changed the course of many lives. For one young woman, it brought opportunities she never imagined.
As a 15-year-old, LaWanda Turner was just 2 weeks into her freshman year of high school. Then the full force of Katrina pounded her hometown of New Orleans.
“We didn’t know where we were going to be taken. We just needed to get out of the Superdome.” LaWanda remembers.
Her family of 5 boarded a bus for Dallas. Then, they crowded into a one bedroom apartment with a relative here in Houston. LaWanda viewed it as a temporary stay.
Then she realized, “Time isn’t going to stop and wait for me to go back to what I had. I need to let it go.”
It was a tough lesson for a then 15-year-old. She started hitting the books and even perfected her communication skills through a unique non-profit organization known as Genysys.
“People in my family didn’t talk about college at all.