Voices that Inspire

What inspires you from WFSU Public Media? Here's this week's Voices That Inspire. My name is Sean Wooden. I am president and CEO at Southern Scholarship Foundation. I grew up in circumstances pretty similar to the residents that come into the program. I grew up in my early years up to about middle school with a single mother living in a mobile home in upstate New York. We didn't have a lot of resources, but early in my life I decided that I didn't want my family to be in that same circumstance. And to me education was a path forward. So I received my bachelor's degree and sort of circumspect. I ended up going into the Peace Corps and then found myself dedicating my life to community service and helping other people. And I found a good home later in my career through higher education. So I really relate very well with our residents and the stories that they have and where they've come from. Working with students is just it's energizing. It's almost always a sense of optimism and the dreams. They're at the point in their lives where they know the direction they're going. The world is just open to them. And so having conversations and listening to them and knowing that they're heading in a positive place for their lives. That energizes me. That keeps me going day to day. Diversity in Southern Scholarship Foundation is one of those issues that is really at the core of what we do. When we choose people for houses, we look at diversity on every aspect. So what is their field of study? What is their family background? What part of Florida are they from? What is their ethnicity? So we look at all those and we bring people together under one roof and try and make that as broad as possible so that there's opportunities to learn from one another. It really helps build community in a sense of belonging as well. My name is Sean Wooden. I am President and CEO at the Southern Scholarship Foundation. You're listening to voices that inspire.