Homeless Student Headed to Harvard University

David Boone will attend Harvard, where he will study engineering and computer science. Picture: Courtesy of Fox news.com.au

There wasn't much the then-15-year-old could do about the prostitutes or drug deals around him when he slept in Artha Woods Park - in the American mid-west city of Cleveland.

And the spectator's bench at the park's baseball diamond wasn't much of a bed.

But the aspiring engineer, now 18 and headed to Harvard University in the fall, had no regular home. Though friends, relatives and school employees often put him up, there were nights when David had no place to go, other than the park.

So he said he made the best of those nights on the wooden bench.

His book bag became his pillow, stuffed with textbooks first - for height, he said - and papers on top for padding.


In the morning, Boone would duck into his friend Eric's house after Eric's parents left early for work so he could shower and dress before heading to class at Cleveland's specialised MC2STEM HighSchool. Boone expects to graduate from there in June as salutatorian of the new school's first graduating class.

"I'd do my homework in a rapid station, usually Tower City since they have heat, and I'd stay wherever I could find," he said.

If you meet Boone today, his gentle, confident demeanor and easygoing laugh betray no cockiness over racking up a college acceptance record that others brag about for him. He was accepted at 22 of the 23 schools he applied to, including Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Brown and Penn.

He also gives no hint of the often harsh and nomadic life he has led. The medical problems he faced as a boy, a splintered family, being homeless - it all could have left him bitter and angry.

Boone said that giving up would have left him stuck in a dead-end life, so it was never an option.

"I didn't know what the results of not giving up were going to be, but it was better than nothing and having no advantages," he said. "I wanted to be in a position to have options to do what I want to do."

Boone was born to a young mother, who divorced his father when Boone was a little boy.

When Boone was a student at Sunbeam Elementary, medical problems put him in the hospital regularly, said Mary Solomon-Gatson, the school's former nurse. Even then, she said, he impressed her as a bright child.

Even at that school, which covers kindergarten through eighth grade, Boone said he was pushed to join gangs. He refused, fueling tension with gang members. Because his older sister dated a member of a rival gang, he said, the situation was much worse.

In the summer after eighth grade, he said, gang members shot at his family's home. He attributes that mostly to the issue of his sister's boyfriend, but his whole family was affected.

No one was injured, but the family split up. His mother went to stay with a boyfriend, he said. His three sisters went to stay with friends and he went to his friend Eric's house - for a while. Though Eric's family took him in for a short time, he said, he couldn't stay there permanently.

"We've been through a lot as a family," said his mom, Moneeke Davis. "There's been a lot of challenges and adversity."

But she said David was determined to build a better life.

"He's so focused, so driven and so humble," Boone said, adding that she is grateful for the people "the Lord put in (Boone's) path" to help him.

Boone decided it wasn't safe to sleep in the park at night and said he developed a new plan: When he wasn't in school, he would sleep in parks during the day and roam and study at night, so he'd be awake and alert to trouble.

In between studying at Tower City, he'd work at a now-closed boutique, he said, to buy food.

MC2STEM Principal Jeff McClellan praised Boone's appetite for learning and his ability to connect with people who can help him learn what he needs.

McClellan learned one of the other reasons that Boone was coming in early was because he was bouncing from place to place to place. McClellan and his wife took in Boone.

He lived with them for more than a year - parts of 10th and 11th grade. He is now living with his friend Eric again.

At Harvard, Boone will study engineering and computer science. He landed a Gates Millennium Scholarship, which will cover all of his college costs not covered by other aid.

(source: ap/cleveland)