Prestigious Posse Scholarship award to Classical senior Thurston, a RAW Arts stalwart

LYNN – Classical High School senior Doneeca Thurston knows that leaving Lynn for Pennsylvania’s Bucknell University this August will be more than a small adjustment, but she also knows that she will have the companionship of nine other Boston area students to ease the transition.Thurston is the only Lynn recipient of the 2008 Posse Foundation Scholarship, which chooses worthy students from the Boston area to attend schools across the country in a group with other recipients. Founded in 1989, Posse started because of one student who said he would not have made it through college without his “posse.” The foundation has since sent over 2,200 students from across the country to college on leadership scholarships with full tuition.In all, 60 Massachusetts students will attend six different colleges across the state on Posse scholarships next year.The award is not an easy one to receive, after Thurston was nominated by RAW Arts, where she has volunteered and worked for the last two years, she went through three strenuous interviews in Boston before she was finally chosen to receive the award.The organization brings in over 1,000 students from the Boston area, and weeds out unqualified students after each of the three interviews. Students must prove that they are dedicated to the program, because they are required to accept the scholarship if they are chosen.Now that she has accepted, she will begin attending leadership courses with her 10 future college classmates every Wednesday until the group leaves for Bucknell in August.”I have never been to Pennsylvania before, so it is going to be an adjustment,” she said. “Moving to a different state and being separated from my parents and the nest they have made for me will probably be the biggest change.”Thurston has been deeply involved with RAW Arts since joining the organization two years ago. She has contributed works in the form of short film and paintings, and has been working in the RAW Chief’s program mentoring other students during her senior year.Because of her grades and volunteer efforts, Classical leaders were ready to nominate Thurston for the Posse Scholarship earlier this year, but found out that RAW Arts had beat them to it.”What is amazing to me about Doneeca is how she really takes charge when she wants something,” said RAW Arts Director of Project Launch Susannah Horwitz. “She is one of those people that just shines, she wants to help others succeed and when she wants something she is really, really going to go for it.”Along with RAW Arts, the senior is also part of the National Honors Society, and she volunteers in the community as part of the Key Club.”I don’t have enough words to describe Doneeca,” said her Guidance Councilor Jessica Toomey. “She is a tremendously involved and talented kid.”Thurston will major in psychology and environmental studies at Bucknell, and she would like to return to Lynn to set up her own non-profit organization, similar to RAW Arts, to provide art therapy to troubled kids.”I want to work with mentally ill children, and use art to talk to them and to help them,” she says. “I will probably come back to Lynn (after school). I love Lynn, it is my home.”While the long distance will be an adjustment for Doneeca and her family, her mother says she is proud to see her child perusing her dreams and working so hard to achieve this scholarship.”It is actually an honor, her father and I are extremely proud,” said her mother Valerie Deland-Thurston. “Every time I think about it I actually want to cry. She pushes herself in everything that she does. She is very motivated. Everything she has done in school she has done for herself.”Thurston says she has been in contact with her future classmates, and they are getting together on Martin Luther King Day to hang out and get to know each other more. Other students in the group are from Boston, Cambridge and Malden.