Portland Community College | Portland, Oregon

Financial aid gives student hope, shelter

Photos and story by James Hill

Completing a 30-page scientific paper for Tom Robertson and Kevin Lien’s environmental studies class should be easy for Kimberley Dukes.

The third-year PCC student has endured a lot in her 30 years. When she was 13 she watched her parents separate. In her twenties, her husband got hooked on methamphetamines. He eventually died from a two-story fall.

The worst of it all might have been when she and her fiancé – Aaron – became homeless. They camped on Sauvie Island where a storm caused their tent to nearly float away; lived in the woods; slept a few nights in the bed of a friend’s pickup truck; camped out in a parking structure of a downtown Fred Meyer store; and have tried to live in an old, abandoned grain mill.

“I was homeless my first term at PCC,” she said. “And most of my first year. I had to do homework by flashlight in a tent. But after 30 years of going through what I had to go through, I was happiest in the woods. It was my happy place.”

To put it mildly, life has been rough for Dukes. But thanks to a friend steering her toward financial aid, she said it turned her life around. Now, hundreds of local students can make similar impacts on their own lives by applying for federal financial aid through PCC’s Financial Aid Day.

This is an opportunity for current and future students to get some help in filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) form. Students don’t need to be enrolled at PCC to participate in Financial Aid Day, which will be held from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 24, at four locations around the college district.

Dukes sees Financial Aid Day as the perfect way for students struggling to make ends meet pay for college and other costs. Aaron and Kimberley’s first financial aid check helped to pay for a new tent and to get it ready for winter. The second check helped them finally get an apartment.

“Personally, I am proof it’s never too late to go back to school,” she said. “You just got to go out there and do it. Yes, you have to pay it back, but it will help you out. Take the loan. It got me off the streets and who knows what it will do for you?”

As she works through school, the Marysville, Calif., native now is engaged in all things relating to the environment and sustainability. She provides tours of the vermi-composting bin and the Rock Creek Loop system, which recycles food back into the campus’ garden. She will graduate in spring of 2009 and hopes to transfer to Portland State University.

Now that Aaron has a job as a baker with Dave’s Killer Bread and Kimberley is approching graduation, the worst part of her life now is finishing those pesky term papers.

“Being that broke and at one with nature I came to realize that I don’t need all the trappings in life,” Dukes said. “Throughout my life I’ve had to do things the hard way… Now we have a home. In April we will move to a two-bedroom apartment. Life is good.”