Coca-Cola Foundation helps GCC student with learning disability excel in her 30s: 'I proved to myself that I can do it'

Cheryl Rose says she thought she could never go to college. Now she's a top student with a scholarship from Coca-Cola ...

Cheryl Rose, a student at Germanna Community College, has been awarded a $1,000 scholarship from the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation. Through the Coca-Cola Two-Year Colleges Scholarship Program, the Foundation awards a total of 400 scholarships annually to students attending higher-education institutions granting two-year degees. All recipients have demonstrated academic success and participated in community service within the past year.


“The scholarship honors students who often balance responsibilities of school, work and family, but also find time to give back to their communities through community service,” said J. Mark Davis, president of the Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation.

“This is a big accomplishment for my family and for me,’ Rose said. “I was the first one to go to college out of myself and my two older brothers”

She said she had never thought she’d be able to go to college because her family lacked the money.

“I was an average student in high school—C’s, D's … I did not have anyone to tell me that if I made good grades I could earn a scholarship to go to school. I started college in my 30's. I proved to myself that I can do it, that I am smart, that just because I have a learning disability doesn't mean I can't achieve.”