Audrianna McCabe is the 2023 Big Sandy Area Community Action Program (BSACAP) Eula Hall Community Advocate Scholarship recipient. She is pursuing a degree in nursing at the Galen College of Nursing.
The Eula Hall Community Advocate Scholarship is an annual $2,000 one-time cash scholarship that is awarded to an applicant that is eligible for the Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) Scholarship. Applications are available annually in May and awarded in July. Applicants must be from the five counties serviced by BSACAP, which consists of Johnson, Floyd, Martin, Magoffin, and Pike.
This specific scholarship is so important to BSACAP because of its significance. This award honors the late Eula Hall, who dedicated her life to advocating for the success and care of Eastern Kentuckians. Recipients of the Eula Hall Community Advocate Scholarship are those that the BSACAP believes uphold this legacy. In addition, the awardees should share similar values of service and community pride.
Eula Hall was not only a member of the BSACAP Board of Directors. Among other countless organizations, she served with the Appalachian Volunteers, the Kentucky Black Lung Association, and the East Kentucky Worker’s Rights Organization. She also established the Mud Creek Clinic- now called the Eula Hall Heath Center. McCabe originally heard of Eula Hall and her efforts while volunteering at this clinic, and she realized that Eula Hall’s compassion and hard work was something that she could relate to and take inspiration from. It was this altruistic mindset and her own experiences as a hospital patient that encouraged McCabe to pick up the phone and answer nursing’s call.
Due to being hospitalized for pulmonary embolisms, a condition in which blood clots block the pulmonary arteries, McCabe says that she knows what it’s like to be a patient; furthermore, she knows what it’s like to endure prejudice as a low-income patient from Eastern Kentucky. “As a nurse, it’s very important that I eradicate a lot of the stigma around patients that come from our area and come from poor means,” McCabe says, “I want to provide them with the experience and compassion that I never received.”
Of the scholarship recipients, Eula Hall has requested, “Don’t forget your upbringing, who you are, and where you come from. It doesn’t matter how far you go in life when you look back, remember the people who are not as fortunate as you are.”
Because of her call to advocate for low-income patients from Eastern Kentucky, McCabe plans on bringing her abilities back to the community after her graduation. McCabe credits this decision to her loyalty and passion towards the patients from this area.
She also wants to show her four children that being from Eastern Kentucky or coming from poor means- or whatever may be viewed as a “barrier” by some- is not something that can separate them from their dreams. McCabe wants to teach her kids that any way of life is full of opportunity, as long as they’re willing to work for it. According to McCabe, status does not determine success.
“I want to show my kids that anything is possible. No matter where you come from. No matter what you come from, you can do anything. If you set your mind to something, with hard work, you will succeed,” McCabe says.
We would like to congratulate McCabe on her academic achievements and endeavors, and we’re so excited to see what she does with her education award, as she truly upholds what it means to be a Eula Hall Community Advocate Scholarship recipient.
The Scholarship Program is made possible by Community Services Block Grant (CSBG) with funds made available by the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
Big Sandy Area Community Action Program is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing a vast array of services, such as employment and training assistance, weatherization of homes, and area Head Start programs, in order to assist individuals and families in obtaining self-sufficiency. Through collaborative efforts of community and organizational partnerships, BSACAP seeks to improve the overall quality of life within the Floyd, Johnson, Martin, Magoffin, and Pike County communities. To learn more about BSACAP and their programs, visit www.bsacap.org or call (606) 789-3641.
To check for eligibility for the CSBG and Eula Hall Community Advocate scholarship, visit this link: https://bsacap.org/program/scholarships. For any further information or questions, please email info@bsacap.org, or contact the following number: 1(888) 658-3641.