Achieving dreams was the main idea of the Freedom Writers’ assembly. Manuel V. Scott, an original freedom writer, shared his experiences and hardships with GBHS students and faculty. Students were asked how his story and past related to Grand Blanc’s.

“In a sense it does, in a sense it doesn’t,” said junior Cody Rodriguez, “Grand Blanc isn’t as rough but we still deal with the problems he had in school.”

Scott had a life full of tragedy. He lost friends and family because of gang violence. Los Angeles was rough when he was growing up there; there was 1495.3 violent crimes reported in 1994, the first year that Erin Gruwell worked there and 2,563 thefts recorded that year as well. Whereas Grand Blanc had only 61 violent crimes and 454 thefts reported in 2008, Grand Blanc is clearly no where near as rough a city as Los Angeles.

“Well we don’t have gangs like his school did,” said senior Travis Johnson, “but his story can relate to anyone anywhere because there are kids everywhere who go through hard times.”

Hardship is an ingredient in everybody’s life, but how they overcome that hardship is what makes everybody different. Scott went though a lot and ended up achieving his aspirations. The once high school drop-out now holds a degree from the University of California at Berkeley, and a graduate degree from Trinity International University.

Sophomore Ally Van Horn said, “I thought it was very inspiring to hear what Manuel went through and even though all that happened to him he still fulfilled his dreams.”

Scott continually talked about achieving dreams and that anyone can do anything they want, and that everyone should be there for everyone else, like a safety net.

“I thought it was informational,” said junior Alyssa Browne. “I really liked how he made us think about our future and how we can chase our dreams. I thought it was very inspiring.”

As Scott would say, regardless of where anyone comes from, what their aspirations are, or why they want what they want; the most important thing is how hard they work to achieve those dreams.