TALLAHASSEE, Fla.– Amanda Thompson said she will be the president of the United States.
Not wants to be or hopes to be but will be.Amanda Thompson said she will be the president of the United States.
Not wants to be or hopes to be but will be.
Just like she will be the attorney general of Florida, the governor of Florida, and the United States attorney general before reaching the Oval Office.
“That’s the plan,” she said. “I’m going to get there.”
Of course, there is some prep work to be done before she begins a career of service to her state and country.
First, Amanda, 17, is set to graduate this May from St. John Paul II Catholic High School (JPII), where she will be class valedictorian. She attends the parochial school in Tallahassee with the help of a Florida education choice scholarship managed by Step Up For Students.
Then it’s off to Harvard University, where she plans to double-major in government and history and earn a degree from its prestigious law school. Along the way, Amanda will pitch for the Crimson softball team with designs on leading the program to its first appearance in the Women’s College World Series.
As that unfolds, Amanda is determined to play softball in the Olympics. She has attended tryouts for Team USA and is a member of the United States Virgin Islands national team.
Taken separately, any one of her goals is ambitious.
But combined?
“She has very, very high expectations,” said JPII Principal Luisa Zalzman. “She’s a go-getter, a high achiever. She has a drive that is very mature for her age.”
“She's done everything she's ever put her mind to,” said Amanda’s mother, Ashley Williard. “She said she wanted to be valedictorian, and I said, ‘OK, go be valedictorian.’ And she did it.”
Amanda is a bundle of energy and confidence. On the softball field, she has a running dialogue with everyone – teammates, opponents, coaches, umpires. In the classroom, she’s involved in every class discussion.
If you had approached her in August 2022 as she took the initial steps of her high school journey and told her she would graduate first in her class and be a member of Harvard Class of 2030, she would have been stunned.
“I would have said, ‘You got the wrong person.’ The difference between me then and me now is astronomical, and I think it’s because I attended this school,” she said. “It has to be.”
Amanda was a star as she rose through the ranks of the Tallahassee youth softball programs. Her parents, Ashley and James Thompson, envisioned their daughter earning an athletic scholarship to college. They were thinking of a high-end academic university like Duke or Notre Dame. That’s how Amanda, who attended her district schools until eighth grade, landed at JPII.
“We wanted a high school that was college-focused,” Ashley said. “Education is what we were looking for, and we could not have done it without Step Up For Students. No way could we afford to put her in that situation.”
There were “little things,” Amanda said, that shaped her academic future.
Her freshman English teacher encouraged her to write outside the margins during tests and essays.
“He said, ‘You don’t have to stay within this box. If you know more, write more on the paper.’ That stuck with me,” Amanda said.
Her freshman world history teacher announced to the class that Amanda scored the highest on the first test of the year.
“He congratulated me,” she said. “I thought that was insane.”
Midway through that semester, Amanda realized she had A’s in all her classes. That’s when she began to believe in herself as a student. Future valedictorian?
“Why not?” she said.
Amanda took AP World History as a sophomore and aced the AP test.
“That’s the class where I learned to learn,” she said.
Also, her love of history and government was born in that class, Amanda said. She can name all the countries of the world, tell you where they are located, and identify the flags.
“I’m working on my capitols,” she said. “It’s my hobby.”
Amanda took Spanish I and II in middle school and passed each, but not with grades that would stand out on a high school transcript. Sara Bayliss, JPII’s college advisor, suggested that Amanda retake those courses.
“She said the grades weren't good enough, that I could do better,” Amanda said.
Amanda retook both classes. She asked Principal Zalzman, a native of Venezuela, for tutoring help. The result was a pair of grades that fit proudly on the transcript Amanda sent to Duke. Duke was her dream school for education and softball.
And then Harvard called.
At midnight on Sept. 1 of her junior year – the first day college coaches can contact 11th graders – Amanda received a phone call from the Harvard softball coach.
“I didn’t even know they had a softball program,” Amanda said.
Intrigued, Amanda accepted a recruiting visit to the university located just outside of Boston. That trip marked the end of her Duke dreams.
“I want to make a difference in this world, and I think Harvard is the perfect school for me,” she said.
Terrence Brown, JPII’s softball coach, has watched Amanda emerge as an Ivy League student and a Division I softball player good enough to attend Team USA tryouts and earn a spot on the national team of a small territory with Olympic ambitions.
“She’s goal-oriented, and she doesn’t let anything get in the way of achieving those goals,” he said. “She’s worked very hard to get to where she’s going.”
Ashley and James are proud parents, but Ashley said they won’t take too much credit for Amanda’s success.
“We have nothing but pride,” Ashley said. “She is self-driven, self-motivated. We try to provide motivation. She’s missed proms and dances because of softball travel and schoolwork, and that was all her decision.
“There are a lot of sacrifices made to go along with this. She’s not afraid of hard work. She says she’s going to do something, and she goes out and does it.”
By Lauren May and Ron Matus
Catholic school enrollment in Florida is up again this year, rising 1.1% to 94,488 students, according to the latest numbers from the Florida Catholic Conference.
The continued growth is likely to bolster Florida’s reputation as the national standout in Catholic schooling. Through last year, Florida Catholic school enrollment was up 12.1% over the past decade. Nationally, it was down 13.2%.
To spotlight the trend lines, we published a special report in 2023, “Why Catholic Schools in Florida Are Growing: 5 Things to Know,” followed by update briefs in 2024 and 2025.
In that spirit, here are five things to know about the 2025-26 numbers:
The trend continues. This year marks five years of consecutive growth. Since 2020-21, when enrollment dipped in the wake of the pandemic, Catholic school enrollment in Florida is up 18.7%.
Special needs surge. Students with special needs are a leading factor. This year, Catholic schools in Florida are serving 13,482 students who use the state’s Family Empowerment Scholarship for Students with Unique Abilities. That’s up 19% from last year and triple the number from five years ago. FESUA students now encompass one in seven of all Catholic school students in Florida.
Non-Catholic students. Catholic schools have a long history of serving a diverse array of students. This year, 20% of students in Florida Catholic schools are non-Catholic, up from 14% a decade ago.
Choice scholarships are critical. In 2022-23, the year before choice in Florida became “universal,” 47.2% of all Catholic school students in Florida used choice scholarships. This year, 92.1% use them.
Context for the trend line. This year’s enrollment increase is smaller than any of the past five years. Time will tell whether that’s an anomaly. But it’s worth noting that except for a la carte learning, K-12 enrollment in Florida is slowing all over:
It’s likely that demographic shifts, including falling birth rates and declining immigration, are significant factors here. With private schools, it’s also possible that barriers such as zoning and building codes are preventing supply from better meeting demand. Last year, a Step Up For Students survey of parents who were awarded choice scholarships but didn’t use them found one in three said there were no seats available at the schools they wanted.
One final note: This post, not to mention our reports on Catholic education in Florida, wouldn’t be possible without the Florida Catholic Conference. FCC Director of Accreditation Mary Camp has been carefully tracking the enrollment and scholarship data for years. We are grateful to partner with the FCC and particularly indebted to Mary.
About the authors
Lauren May is Vice President and Head of the Federal Scholarship Tax Credit Program at Step Up for Students and a former Senior Director of Advocacy at Step Up For Students. As a proud graduate
of the University of Florida, she received her bachelor’s degree in special education
and her master's degree in early childhood education. She then completed another
master's degree in educational leadership from Saint Leo University. A former
Catholic school teacher, early childhood director, and principal, she was honored with
University of Florida’s “Outstanding Young Alumni” award in 2018. As a believer
that parents are the first and best educators of their children, Lauren loves working
with families across the state and beyond to ensure they can find and make
use of the best educational options for their children.
Ron Matus is Director, Research & Special Projects, at Step Up For Students. He
joined Step Up in 2012 after more than 20 years as an award-winning journalist,
including eight years as the state education reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, the
state’s biggest and most influential newspaper.
Jordan Glen School started in 1974 on 20 acres of woods in the small town of Archer near Gainesville. Owner Jeff Davis, a former public school teacher, moved to Florida from Michigan to start a school that allowed students more freedom. Today it continues to thrive, thanks in part to education choice scholarships. Photo by Ron Matus
ARCHER, Fla. – Archer is a crossroads community of 1,100 people 15 minutes from the college town of Gainesville, but far enough away to have its own quirky identity. It’s surrounded by live oak-studded ranch land but calling it a “farm town” doesn’t ring right. When railroads ruled the Earth, Archer was a whistle stop on the first line connecting the Atlantic to the Gulf. In the late 1800s, T. Gilbert Pearson, co-founder of the National Audubon Society, roamed the woods here as a kid, skipping school to hunt for bird eggs. A century later, rock ‘n roll icon Bo Diddley spent his golden years on the outskirts.
So, let’s just say Archer is a neat little town. And maybe it’s fitting that for half a century, it has been home to a neat little private school that doesn’t fit into any boxes, either.
Jordan Glen School got its start in 1974, when former public school teacher Jeff Davis moved down from Michigan. In the late 1960s, Davis became disillusioned with teaching in traditional schools. In his view, students were respected too little and labeled too much.
“Back in the day, I would have been labeled ADHD. I hated school,” he said. “I never met a teacher that took a personal interest in me.”
As a teacher, he saw a system that was “too constricting.”
“There was just a general distrust of children, like they were going to do something bad,” he said. Education “doesn’t have to be rammed down your throat.”
Davis migrated to what was, more or less, a “free school,” with 50 students on a farm near Detroit. Today we’d call it a microschool.
In the 1960s, hundreds of these DIY schools emerged across America, propelled by an upbeat vision of education freedom inspired by the counterculture. Davis said the Upland Hills Farm School was a free school, more or less, because while its teachers were “long-haired” and “hippie-ish,” the school had more structure and rigor than free school stereotypes would suggest.
Davis thought the Gainesville area would be a good place to start a similar school. It had a critical mass of like-minded folks. So, in 1973, he and his family bought 20 acres of woods off a dirt road in Archer. Not long afterward, they invited a little school called Lotus Land School, then operating out of a community center in Gainesville, to move to their patch in the country. Today we’d call Lotus Land a microschool, too.
It was also, more or less, a free school. Davis described the teachers and families as “love children” and “free spirits,” but in many ways, their approach to teaching and learning was mainstream. A decade later, he changed the name. “I thought people would think it was a hippie dippy school, and I knew it was more than that,” he said.
Lotus Land became Jordan Glen. The school was named after the River Jordan, after some parents and teachers suggested it, and after basketball legend Michael Jordan, because Davis was a fan.
Fast forward a few more decades, and Jordan Glen School is thriving more than ever.
It now serves more than 100 students in grades PreK-8, some of whom are the second generation to attend. Nearly all use Florida’s education choice scholarships. Actor Joaquin Phoenix is among Jordan Glen’s alums. So is CNN reporter and anchor Sara Sidner.
Jordan Glen is yet more proof that education freedom offers something for everyone and that its roots are deep and diverse. Ultimately, the expansion of learning options gives more people from all walks of life more opportunity to educate their children in line with their visions and values.
“There is something about joy and happiness that makes people uneasy and a bit insecure,” Davis wrote in a 2005 column for the local newspaper, entitled “Joyful Learning is the Most Valuable Kind.” “If children are enjoying school so much, they must not be doing enough ‘work’ there.”
“Children at our school,” he wrote, “love life.”
A peacock, one of two dozen that roam the Jordan Glen School campus, watches students at play. Photo by Ron Matus
The Jordan Glen campus includes a handful of modest buildings. It’s still graced by a dirt road and towering trees. It’s also home to two dozen, free-roaming peacocks. They’re the descendants of a pair Davis bought in 1975 because they were beautiful and would eat a lot of bugs.
Given that backdrop, it’s not surprising that many families describe Jordan Glen as “magical.”
Alexis Hamlin-Vogler prefers “whimsical.” She and her husband decided to enroll their children, Atticus, 14, and Ellie, 8, in the wake of the pandemic.
“They’re definitely outside a lot,” she said of the students. “They’re climbing trees. They’re picking oranges.” When it rained the other day, her daughter and some of the other students, already outside for a sports class, got a green light to play in it and get muddy.
Another parent, Ilia Morrows, called Jordan Glen a “little unicorn of a school.”
Like Hamlin-Vogler, Morrows enrolled her kids, 11-year-old twins Breck and Lucas, following the Covid-connected school closures. She thought they’d stay a year, then return to public school. But after a year, they didn’t want to go back. “They had a taste of freedom,” she said.
For many parents, Jordan Glen hits a sweet spot between traditional and alternative.
On the traditional side, Jordan Glen students are immersed in core academics. They take tests, including standardized tests. They get grades and report cards. They play sports like soccer and tennis, and they’re good enough at the latter to win the county’s middle school championship. Many of them move on to the area’s top academic high schools.
But Jordan Glen also does a lot differently.
Students spend a lot of time outdoors at Jordan Glen School. Activities include archery, gardening and sports. Photo by Ron Matus
The students are grouped into multi-age and multi-grade classrooms. They choose from an ever-changing menu of electives. Many of those classes are taught by teachers, but some are taught by parents (like archery, gardening, and fishing), and some by the students themselves (like soccer, dance, and book club). The youngest students also do a “forest school” class once a week.
The school also emphasizes character education.
The older students serve as mentors for the younger students. They’re taught peer mediation so they can settle disputes. Every afternoon, they clean the school, working as crew leaders with teams of younger students. Their “Senior Class Guide” stresses nothing is more important than “caring about others.”
“The way the older kids take care of the younger kids, it’s very noticeable. They are genuinely caring,” Morrows said. At Jordan Glen, “they teach community. They teach being a good human.”
“My favorite thing is that most kids really get a good sense of self and self-confidence at this school,” Hamlin-Vogler said. “Some people say, ‘Oh, that’s the hippie school.’ But the students have a lot of expectations and personal accountability put on them.”
Hamlin-Vogler said without the education choice scholarships, she and her husband wouldn’t be able to afford the school. Hamlin-Vogler is a hairdresser. Her husband is a music producer. Before Florida made every student eligible for scholarships in 2023, they missed the income eligibility threshold by $1,000. Her parents were able to assist with tuition in the short term, but that would not have been sustainable.
Her family harbors no animus toward public schools. Atticus attended them prior to Jordan Glen, and he’s likely to be at a public high school next fall. Ellie, meanwhile, thinks she might want to try the neighborhood school even though she loves Jordan Glen in every way, and Hamlin-Vogler said that would be fine.
After Ellie described how much fun she had playing in the rain, though, Hamlin-Vogler had to remind her, “You might not get to do that at another school.”
It’s been a month since classes started, and Matthew Ottenwess is settled into his freshman year at Tampa Catholic High School.
He’s made friends and likes his teachers.
His high score on the school’s entrance exam gained him admission to three honors classes and one AP course. He plays linebacker on the junior varsity football team.
This was the educational landing his mother, Maggie, was looking for when she learned the family would move from New Mexico to Florida after her husband Chris, a Chief Master Sergeant in the United States Air Force, received a transfer to MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa.
The Ottenwesses have a Florida education choice scholarship to thank for that.
“It’s a game-changer,” Maggie said.
Maggie, Chris and Matthew visit Yellowstone National Park. (Photos courtesy of Maggie Ottenwess)
While the family was still stationed at Kirtland Air Force Base in Alburquerque, Maggie was able to apply for a Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options (FES-EO), managed by Step Up For Students.
“The scholarship made the (moving) process easier, gave us more choice, allowed us to take a breath and not have to worry about additional stresses, both monetary and interpersonal,” Maggie said. “It eased the PCS (Permanent Change of Station) experience. There are countless other things that change – doctors, dentists, specialists, church, youth group, scouts. This took one of the larger chunks off the list.
“Box checked.”
Matthew had been homeschooled during the past five years. Chris and Maggie decided he would return to a brick-and-mortar school setting for high school. They also wanted that setting to be at a faith-based school, preferably a Catholic school.
They understood that would burden the family’s finances, but it was a sacrifice they would accept.
Chris received his Permanent Change of Station order on Dec. 23, 2024. Soon, Maggie was told of Florida’s private school scholarship program from other moms within the military community.
“I couldn’t believe what I was hearing,” Maggie said. “It was too good to be true.”
Maggie set her alarm for 7 a.m. local time on the first Saturday in February. Families could apply for FES-EO scholarships that day at 9 a.m. EST. Since Albuquerque is two hours behind, Maggie wanted to apply as soon as the session opened.
“In the military, on-time is late,” she joked.
Maggie found the “Scholarships for Military Families” page on the Step Up website and entered her family’s information. The process went smoothly until Maggie came to the screen that required her to enter her Florida address. Since the move wouldn’t happen until June, and since the family would live on the Air Force Base, they had yet to be assigned housing, so no Florida address.
“I was in panic mode,” she said.
Her fear was quickly defused during a live chat with customer service.
“You’re not the first,” Maggie was told. “We get this a lot.”
She just needed to upload Chris’s Permanent Change of Station order in the proof of residency screen on the application.
Once Maggie learned that Matthew was awarded a scholarship, she started researching private faith-based schools in the Tampa area and settled on Tampa Catholic because of its challenging history and science curriculums. He was accepted Feb. 28.
“Our Christian faith is important to our family,” Maggie said. “It is the foundation that makes all the complications, moves, hardships, financial struggles, stress, and the like possible. We incorporated religion into Matt's homeschool curriculum and wanted to keep that moving forward. We were open to both Christian and specifically Catholic options. We believed a faith-centered school would continue to support his character and moral compass.”
The FES-EO scholarship covers more than half of the yearly tuition at Tampa Catholic. Maggie said they can afford to cover the rest without her getting a job, something that is not easy for military spouses. Local businesses are not quick to hire someone who could be moving in two or three years.
This allows Maggie to continue her work as an advocate for younger enlisted Airmen, military families and dependents. She works on various committees, task forces, and councils that deal with medical, special needs, and religious issues.
“So, the scholarship is not only helping my son get a quality education, it's helping the mission of the military by me having the breadth and space and time to do those things,” Maggie said. “The scholarship is allowing a difference to happen.”
Chris, who is the Command Chief of the 6th Air Refueling Wing at MacDill, has been in the Air Force for 28 years. He and Maggie have been married for 18 years. They’ve lived on five bases in four different states.
Matthew, who was born when his parents were stationed in New Jersey, his mom’s home state, has lived in Mississippi, Illinois, New Mexico and now Florida.
When asked about the latest move, he said, “I was super excited, a little nervous for all the changes, but definitely excited to get a whole different experience of school.”
The experience was somewhat of a jolt at first. He said it took him a few weeks to become comfortable with the return to the classroom setting. He had attended Catholic school before being homeschooled.
He said he likes living in Tampa, and being on the football team allowed him to make friends quickly, since fall practice began before the first day of classes.
“It's really good,” he said. “(Tampa Catholic) has a really good curriculum. I like the teachers, and it's fun to hang out with my friends all day.”
Markala was Marlena and John Roland’s first child, and there were more on the way – four more, in all. And Markala was 5, so the Roland children were going to reach school age in quick succession.
This presented a dilemma.
“We wanted our kids in private school, but we didn’t have the money,” Marlena said.
But there was hope.
The year was 2005, and Marlena, a teacher at a private school near their Coral Springs home at the time, learned about a private school scholarship that had been established a few years earlier and was managed by Step Up For Students.
For nearly 20 years, a member of the Roland family attended a private school with the help of a scholarship managed by Step Up For Students.
She applied and was accepted, and for nearly all of the next 20 years, at least one of the Roland children attended a private school with the help of a Step Up scholarship. The exception was the two years the family lived in Georgia.
“It was a blessing for us,” John said. “The best thing we did was give them that education foundation.”
“None of that would have been possible without the scholarship,” Markala said.
Marlena was a teacher at ALCA when the kids began school. Even with the employee discount, she said the cost of tuition would strain the family’s finances. Still, she wanted her children to benefit from ALCA’s educational setting just like the students she was teaching.
“We wanted to set the bar high, to create good study skills and habits. We wanted them to be well-rounded,” said Marlena, who also taught at The Randazzo School for nearly 10 years, including the time Marcia attended.
Marcia, who graduated last May from The Randazzo School, was the last of the Roland children to use a scholarship managed by Step Up For Students.
It was by design that the Roland children split their education between private and district schools. Some were sports-related, but mostly, John wanted their children to experience both educational settings.
“John said, ‘Let’s put them in public school for a little bit and see how it goes,’” Marlena said. “He said they need to have both, and that will build character and build them as individuals.”
And it worked.
The private school experience helped the children excel at their district schools.
“It laid a really good foundation for us,” Markala said. “Just getting us excited to be in the classroom, to learn new things, to collaborate with others.
“I had friends (in high school) ask me, ‘Where did you learn this? Why are you thinking that way?’ All I could say was, ‘Thanks to my teachers at ALCA and Westminster.’ They really set us apart and prepared us for what was coming next. We were leaps and bounds ahead of our peers.”
John credited the private school education his children received but also gave credit to the emphasis he and Marlena placed on education at home.
“When I dropped them off at school, I told them we’ll add to it when you get home,” he said.
“They didn’t play with that,” Markala said. “That was non-negotiable in our house.”
She remembers a time when John sold the family pickup truck to help meet the expenses of her attending Westminster that the scholarship didn’t cover.
“As a kid, you see them doing that, and I'm like, ‘Don't we need that car to get places?’ They really valued education. That was what was important,” she said. “I see that now as an adult, the things that they're willing to do to make sure that we had a good education, putting us into spaces where we could learn and grow have been tremendous to me, even now that I’m in the workforce.”
CLEARWATER, Fla. — The Newton brothers’ reign at Clearwater Central Catholic High School ended on a Thursday night in December when Jershaun, the youngest, played his final football game.
It was quite a run for the family who lives down the road in St. Petersburg. It was quite a run for the high school’s football program, as well.
Five Newtons played for the Marauders every year but one since the 2015 season. Each brother earned a college scholarship to play football. One plays in the NFL, and another likely will join him there next season.
For nine seasons, the Newton brothers were a force for the Clearwater Central Catholic High School football program. (Photo provided by the Newton family).
“I didn’t expect this,” said their mom, Jovita Rich. “I just wanted them to have a better education, honestly. That’s why I sent them to private school.”
The brothers attended private schools with the help of education choice scholarships managed by Step Up For Students and funded by corporate donations to the nonprofit.
“I love the Step Up scholarship,” Jovita said. “It's been a godsend to my family to be able to put my kids through private school.”
It began with the twins, Jervon Jr. and Jerquan, who enrolled at Clearwater Central Catholic (CCC) as freshmen in 2013-14 and joined the football team as sophomores. Both played collegiately at the University of West Florida in Pensacola before finishing at Mars Hill University in North Carolina. Jervon, a running back, and Jerquan, a linebacker, majored in education and are both elementary school teachers.
Jerjuan followed, graduating CCC in 2019, and recently completed his senior season at the University of Toledo. He’ll graduate with a degree in mechanical engineering technology. A wide receiver who holds the school record for career touchdowns (32), Jerjuan was named to the All-Mid-American Conference first team for the second consecutive season. He was invited to the Hula Bowl, an all-star game for top NFL prospects.
Jer’Zhan (Johnny) was next. He graduated from CCC in 2020 and starred at the University of Illinois. He was a two-time All-American and the 2023 Big Ten Defensive Player of the Year as a defensive tackle, and graduated with a degree in general studies. He was selected in the second round of 2024 NFL Draft by the Washington Commanders and helped the team reach the NFC Championship Game.
And then there is Jershaun, or “Shauny,” the youngest who led CCC to three consecutive state title games. A knee injury he suffered in the state semifinal this year prevented him from playing in his third state championship game.
A quarterback, Shauny set Pinellas County career records for total yards (9,962) and total touchdowns (105) during his four years. He will follow Johnny to Illinois and plans to major in sports management.
“They are workaholics,” said their dad, Jervon Sr. “These kids, they work day in and day out. I knew they had the athletic ability, but they had the heart and desire to be better than everybody.”
***
The Newtons’ path to an education choice scholarship and football stardom began just over a decade ago inside a St. Petersburg laundromat when Jovita, to kill time during the wash and dry cycles, started a conversation with another mom doing laundry.
The topic of their children’s education came up, and Jovita mentioned her displeasure with the district school Shauny attended. The other mom said her kids attended private school.
Shauny, the youngest of the five Newton brothers, led CCC to three consecutive state title games. (Photo courtesy of Liz Holmes.)
“I was like, ‘Oh, I've looked into it, but it's just so expensive, I can't afford it.’ And then she said, ‘You should try Step Up For Students,’” Jovita recalled.
Jovita wasn’t familiar with Step Up or the scholarships it manages, but she was when she left the laundromat that night.
“She said, ‘It helped me out. I put all my kids through school through Step Up,’” Jovita said. “So, I checked it out, applied for it, and they were all approved.”
The twins headed to CCC while the others enrolled in private K-8 schools near their St. Petersburg home.
Eventually, all their paths led to CCC.
“I’m so glad that she washed those clothes in that laundromat, I promise you that much,” CCC football coach Chris Harvey said.
***
The 2020 season was the only one in the last 10 years that did not include a Newton on the roster. The Marauders were 5-5 that year. They are 98-19 with at least one Newton.
“That’s pretty impressive,” Harvey said.
In 2016, CCC reached the regional semifinals with Jervon Jr., Jerquan, Jerjuan, and Johnny on the team. The twins were seniors, Jerjuan was a sophomore and Johnny was a freshman.
“Johnny has a big personality,” Harvey said. “He’s the funny one. The twins were always laughing. Jerjuan was the serious one. He had to control the other three.”
Absorbing everything was Shauny, who was a presence around the CCC football team since he was 8. Not only was he starring for the Pop Warner football team coached by his dad, but he also attended CCC practices and trained with his brothers at the high school and at a local facility used by many of the area’s college and professional players.
Like his brother Johnny, Shauny plans on being a dominant player at the University of Illinois. (Photo courtesy of Liz Holmes.)
“They pushed each other,” Jervon Sr. said. “They’re their biggest fans but also their biggest critiques. And as Shauny got older you started seeing flashes of all of them in him.”
Not only the on-field ability but the off-field dedication that led to his success – worth ethic, desire to succeed, discipline.
“He’s the perfect combination of all four of them,” Harvey said. “He can play just about any position that you want him to play and play at a high level. When they say that the baby of the family is the best one, they're not lying. His future is about as bright as it could possibly be.”
***
When asked what it’s like to have a brother play in the NFL, Shauny shrugged and said, “It’s normal.”
That’s because it was the end game for all the workouts, all the time in the weightroom and all the work in the classroom.
“It helped a lot, seeing how they did things,” Shauny said. “I've been doing the same thing as they did, working out, keeping my body together, getting good grades.”
The theme running through it all, Shauny said, was “accountability.”
His one takeaway from all the time spent around his brothers and the CCC football program:
“Don't react when you don't have to react,” Shauny said. “Don't entertain foolishness.”
Jovita said the main reason for the brothers attending CCC was the education.
“The twins went on a tour, and we loved the school, we loved what it had to offer,” she said. “The rest is history.”
Jovita said her sons often talked about their college courses, and while demanding, they weren’t overwhelmed.
“The education at CCC is phenomenal. They've done an excellent job in college,” Jovita said. “They didn't call home saying, ‘I'm having trouble. This is hard.’ They went to college, and it was like, ‘Oh, we've been over this in high school. This is easy work right here.’ So, it’s the schedule that (CCC) puts the kids through and the classes that they take that just prepared them exceptionally for when they went to college.
“Their goal was to go to college, play football and try to make it to the NFL, and if not, they all have their college degrees to fall back on, which I'm very proud of that as well. They all graduated with a bachelor's degree.”
CLEARWATER, Fla. – The orphans in a tiny town in Tanzania left the biggest impression on Sarah Williams.
They were so cute and kind and happy.
And curious.
The children were fascinated with Sarah’s long hair. It’s something rarely seen in that part of the world, where water is so scarce the locals shave their heads so as not to waste the precious resource on something as ordinary as washing their hair.
Sarah let the kids run their fingers through her locks. She showed them how to make a ponytail and how to braid it.
“They were so happy,” Sarah said. “They don’t have much, but they have each other. All they wanted was to hold our hands and play with us.”
The orphans that Sarah Williams met in Tanzania were curious about her long hair.
Sarah, five of her classmates from Clearwater Central Catholic High School (CCC) and two chaperones from the school spent 10 days last June in Tanzania as representatives of Water 4 Mercy, a nonprofit that provides water and food and hope to remote villages in Africa.
Water 4 Mercy was started in 2018 by Nermine Khouzam Rubin, whose daughter, Samantha, is a graduate of CCC.
Sarah is a junior who attends the private Catholic school on a Family Empowerment Scholarship for Educational Options (FES-EO). The scholarship is managed by Step Up For Students.
She is a member of CCC’s Water 4 Mercy service chapter, the largest service chapter in the school. It began in 2021 and has raised $36,000 through fundraisers. This was the first time CCC students traveled to Africa.
“It’s life-changing,” said Beth Lani, CCC’s director of advancement and moderator of the school’s Water 4 Mercy chapter.
The 16-page itinerary that Sarah and her classmates received said it would be a “fun and meaningful journey” and a “life changing adventure.”
It was for Sarah and for Corey Vohra, a senior who also made the trip.
They visited schools, an orphanage and convent, and several rural villages. They also attended Mass in Swahili and went on a safari.
“I went there with an open mind,” Corey said. “I wanted to see where the journey would take us.”
They met villagers barely scraping by without one of life’s biggest necessities – clean water – yet were also some of the happiest people they’ve ever met.
They saw smiling faces everywhere they went. Children lined up and waved when the traveling party drove by.
“It showed me a different perspective on my life,” Corey said. “I feel like coming out of that trip, I'm very grateful for everything I have and all the privileges I have in life.”
When Sarah returned home, she researched the type of social work needed in countries like Tanzania.
“It impacted me so much I want to do something about it,” she said. “I’m looking at majors for college, and I’d like to major in social work so I can go back and work with the orphanage.”
Sarah plans to attend the University of Tampa, where she can continue to play volleyball and major in social work.
“Before this trip I wanted to major in interior design,” she said, “so this is something totally different. I love being around children. I babysit for a ton of different families. I always had a connection with children, so I think this is something that I want to stick with.”
Corey, who also attends CCC on an FES-EO scholarship, plans to attend college in south Florida and major in international affairs.
“This trip helped me figure out what I want to do,” he said. “Maybe I can be part of the United Nations and do something to help make a difference there.”
The trip included visits to places like Mabalangu Village, a community of 2,200 that recently gained access to clean water for the first time thanks in part to the efforts of CCC’s Water 4 Mercy service chapter.
And to villages that are in the process of gaining access to clean water. It was those visits that left a lasting impact. The students watched villagers gather water from muddy water holes also used by animals. You can imagine what is mixed in with the mud.
“It was crazy,” Corey said. “And then you come home, and you can take like 10 steps and get water from your fridge.”
The villages consist mostly of women and children, because the men travel to other parts of the country for work. Those women and children carry the water back to their homes in containers they balance on their heads.
“I saw a big difference between the village with no water and the village with water,” Sarah said. “Everybody was happier. They looked cleaner.”
Lani was one of the chaperones. This was her second trip to Tanzania with Water 4 Mercy. Seeing the impact the school is making in Tanzania was “very inspiring,” she said.
She graduated from Cleveland State University with a degree in anthropology and said she would have jumped at the chance to go on a trip like this at that time had one been available.
“I know these kids, they're bright kids, and I figured maybe it wouldn’t pivot their career choice, but maybe give them a different perspective, and it might color what they do in the future,” she said. “But to hear them say it actually is guiding their career choice, at least at this point in their lives, is wonderful. I’m thankful that I could share that opportunity with them.”
