Welcome to 1800Wheelchair.com Spring '21 Scholarship

Topic

Topic: Please submit a 'visual poem', in a style of your choosing, on the theme of overcoming a personal challenge.

Statement from 1800wheelchair

1800wheelchair is very proud to announce the winner of our Spring '21 scholarship contest. With well over 500 entries, this one stood apart for its compelling story.

Winning Submission (Personal Statement):

My name is Reegan Jenkins, I am a senior in high school and I struggle with mental illness. It can be hard for people who don’t have one or more mental illnesses to understand the struggles we go through because they don’t appear to affect us physically. That doesn’t make it any less real. 

The title of my visual poem is “Candy”. If a child is sad candy will likely cheer them up. The same can be said for people with mental illnesses. That may sound upsetting to people who have not gone through the long process of finding medications that work for you. However for some of us medications are how we live a “‘normal” life. The prompt is about overcoming challenges you have faced. The story of me overcoming mental illness is ongoing. It isn’t a grand story of beating mental illness with sheer willpower because sometimes it doesn’t work that way. Sometimes overcoming means now that you have anxiety medication you can go grocery shopping, or now that you have antidepressant medication you are able to successfully complete your morning routine. For me it is a constant battle against mental illness to complete what one may call mundane tasks. Medications are a tool I use to overcome mental illnesses and the challenges that come with them. 

Visual Poem:

Winning Submission: Visual Poem

"Candy"