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The Congress, based on the University of Massachusetts Lowell campus near Boston, is an honors-only program for academic rock stars like Jawuan, high school students who plan on a career in medicine, either as doctors or through scientific research. He’s not even sure who nominated him.

“I read up on it, and it’s something I really want to participate in,� he said.

Jawuan realized right away that his 4.3 grade point average might have helped him get nominated. But attending the congress would be a challenge —Ìý¾±²Ô large part, because of where he lives.

A long path to Jawuan's dream

The path to  — where he’s a sophomore — winds its way over crumbling roads, past scores of abandoned homes and businesses, through the hills and hollows of McDowell County, Ìý¾±²Ô Ìý¾±²Ô the nation.

The school sits, as its name suggests, at the top of a hill overlooking the valley, like a beacon of hope in a desolate sea. But it’s Ìý¾±²Ô a state with some of the .

“I love this school,� said Tim Kennedy, serving his first full year as principal at Mount View. "We have awesome people here. There's a passion here. When I decided to accept the job here, a lot of people said, 'Are you sure you wanna go there?' And I said 'I am sure.'�

The Mount View students are acutely aware of the perceptions from the outside... and the extra challenges that means for students like him who want to get out — temporarily — and then return to work toward solutions.

“I’ve experienced firsthand what it feels like to be from McDowell County, and people judge you and look down on you. Being from McDowell County, it’s a big stigma around us and who we are as people,� Kennedy said.

Tuition alone is $900 for the summer medical academy to which Jawuan has been invited, plus travel, food and lodging. Too much, he felt, to ask of his parents.

“My dad has a good job. And my mom, she works very hard… It would just be a lot for them to fund that, because I’m not an only child. Having the money to fund that just for me would be a lot.�

Jawuan, who decided in elementary school that he wanted to be the valedictorian some day and who set his sights at a young age on a career working as a heart doctor in the depressed area of his youth, instinctively saw this latest obstacle as one more challenge to meet. 

So the first thing he did was turn to a teacher who has already played an instrumental role in helping him chart a path for the future he wants.

'I want more'

Debbie Krabbe, McDowell County's Teacher of the Year in 2017, leads the  curriculum at Mount View High School. A program of The West Virginia Chamber Foundation, JWVG currently serves more than 400 students in Logan, McDowell, Boone and Lewis counties, with plans to expand to three more counties in the next school year. 

The current state budget doesn't fund surplus programs including JWVG. So the estimated $1 million comes primarily from private funds, said Elizabeth House, executive director of JWVG.

Under the umbrella of the national program, the goal is to identify students with promise who might flourish in high school and beyond with additional support.

“They have great potential and they showed interest. They’re saying ‘I want more. I want to be everything I can be,’� Krabbe said. 

“If they want to go to a two-year college, four-year college, if they want to go to trade school. We can do job shadowing, things like that. …Or if they want to go on and become a welder, whatever they want to become, this is like a bridge program. ‘Let’s help you get there.’�

“It's helped with my public presentation skills. I used to get really nervous and it's helped me gain a lot of confidence. It's helped me with planning out college, said Ryleigh Gillman, 16, who launched a profitable business selling homemade air fresheners as part of her classwork.

“Before I got in this program, I was getting Cs and Ds, but once I got in that changed,� said Tavious Richardson, 17. “It made me realize I wanna do this, I wanna do this. That's why in the fall of '24 I will be attending Concord University.�

“It's helped me with leadership because we talk about leadership roles a lot. We go on trips that are really unusual — it's just showed me that normal people can be leaders in this world,� said Chelsy Atwell, 16, who wants to be an aerospace engineer.

Other students want careers as a general practitioner, veterinarian, welder, athletic trainer and a wide variety of jobs that represent their hopes and dreams. Not their tickets out, but their chance to be a part of the solution in the place they call home.

'We want you to come back'

“One of our tenets is, 'Go to college ... but we want you to come back to your communities and give back here,'� Krabbe said.

Jawuan wants to be a cardiothoracic surgeon. He knows that means roughly a dozen years of school after he graduates from Mount View. But he plans to return and set up practice in McDowell County.

“I want to bring everything I learn back down here to the county to help out any way that I could because there really aren't any heart surgeons down here. Anyone that needs health care will have to travel at least over an hour on average to get to the hospitals,� he said.

“Just knowing that one day I'll be able to give back, especially coming down here and giving back to my community, it just makes me feel good inside thinking about how many people I can possibly help.�

His teacher fully expect him to reach all of these goals.

“I have no doubt he'll do it,� Krabbe said.

Finding the funds

So when Jawuan showed her the email, told her about the Congress of Future Medical Leaders, she saw it as part of her job to help him get there.

“I just knew he needed to go, and there was no way I was going to let this opportunity slip by him,� she said.

A GoFundMe she launched in January so far has raised more than $500 — all from Mount View alumni.

Then an anonymous donor stepped forward to fund the full cost of the trip.

For Jawuan, it was another piece of crucial support for his future.

“It's a pretty big deal, and finding the funding for it was really important to me,� he said with a big smile.

He plans to drive with his family to Charlotte, North Carolina, then fly to Boston for the academy.

“It was an incredible feeling, to be honest. I cried happy tears,� Krabbe said. “The fact that it was an alumni of Mount View made it even sweeter. It validated my belief that McDowell County people are the best.�

As for the rest of her students, “they're all stars,� Krabbe said. “Every single one of them.�

Some of her stars come from incredibly difficult circumstances, and want nothing more than not to repeat the patterns of their past.

“We talk about breaking the cycle of generational poverty, we talk about drug abuse. ...Every student here will tell you in one way or another they have been touched by the serious drug crisis in McDowell County.�

Some of them have faced traumas that she herself can relate to — part of the reason she connects as well as she does with them, she suspects.

“If you've never known what it's like to be afraid to go home, or wear dirty clothes, or not have electric or water or food, you can't put yourself in that kid's shoes,� she said.

“It's really important that they know they are not alone. You have to do a lot of forgiveness and that's what these kids do on a daily basis. Here there's a lot of healing.�

There's individual healing, she said. But the hope, the belief, is that the seeds she is planting today will eventually lead to healing for a county that has seen better days — and might just see them again.

“Our students can come back and change all these water problems, road problems, problems that keep all the students from coming back once they leave. What I love about these students is they really embrace how they can be a part of fixing it.�