Downey teen overcomes homelessness to earn full-ride college scholarship

DOWNEY — Following a year of unexpected tribulation and hardship, recent Downey High School graduate Armando Ramirez has been awarded the Minute Man Scholarship from the U.S. Army, worth $250,000.

The Minuteman Scholarship is a U.S. Army Cadet Command initiative to offer Guaranteed Reserve Forces Duty (GRFD) scholarships to candidates who self-select for service in the reserve component, providing full tuition and fees for up to four years at a public or private school.

Ramirez, 18, will pursue accounting and finance at Loyola Marymount University on a full-ride and will participate in Reserve Officers’ Training Corp (ROTC) at UCLA. Upon graduation, he will serve as an officer in the United States Army with no college debt.

Eventually, he wants to pursue a master’s degree.

It was not an easy road for Ramirez to get to this point, however, as he was forced to endure tragedy and resulting hardship at the start of the school year.

“In August, my grandfather passed away, and he was the sole provider for my family here in Downey,” said Ramirez. “Once he passed away, it was kind of the domino effect: Okay, there goes the house. Then my mom and my little brother, they ended up moving to Texas leaving myself and my older brother here, so we were kind of like, ‘We need to make this work, we need to find a place to go.’”

Ramirez says that going to Texas with his mom and 13-year-old younger brother was not an option.

“I couldn’t move. Before Downey High School I was moving every year,” said Ramirez. “Downey was going to be my first school where I finally put my foot down and I said, ‘I’m not leaving.’ No matter what, I’m going to just be here, and I’m going to make it possible for me to stay at a school for the whole term.”

Staying with his brother wasn’t likely either.

“When you have two in the package, it’s a lot harder to ask for a room,” said Ramirez. “We kind of just understood that, ‘Hey, you’re going to do your thing, I’m going to do my thing, but we’ve always got each other’s back.’”

Ramirez was able to stay afloat surviving on money he had saved from a summer job doing groundskeeping and irrigation around Downey Unified School District, all while couch-surfing between “four or five places” between Norwalk, Downey, Lynwood, and South Gate.

He continued to pick up other work where he could, when Downey High School Principal Tom Houts – who had helped Ramirez get his first summer job – checked in with a new opportunity at Robert F Jacobs Law Office.

“Right now, I’m just doing legal assistant work,” said Ramirez. “The law firm specializes in immigration and criminal law, so I hear a lot of stories of immigrants coming to America and trying to obtain their visa.

“I take the steps that are needed to legally process them into America. It’s very much a fulfilling job, when you complete a whole client’s story, and you do all the application process for them, and you see them be able to fulfill the reward, it fulfills you as a person. Like, okay, what I’m doing is actually making a big difference in a lot of people’s lives.”

Ramirez spent most of his time after school at work. The law office wasn’t open on weekends though, and Ramirez still needed to make as much money as he could. So he picked up yet another job, this time trucking out of a port in El Monte.

“You gotta be willing to sacrifice some things to be able to accomplish the things that you need to accomplish,” said Ramirez.

Still, the wear and tear of his work-heavy life took a toll, which Houts took notice of.

“He pulled me in one day because he started noticing first period I’d be coming late pretty often, and he’s like, ‘Hey man, what’s up? Some of your grades are slipping.’ I was like, ‘I’m just tired. I’m exhausted.’ I felt beat, but I’m trying to show up every day…

“He helped me out here in school, fixed my schedule around to allow me more time to breathe and work if I needed to work and get extra hours.”

Houts even gave him back his old groundskeeping job.

And if this wasn’t enough, Ramirez did this while balancing high level and AP classes, while also being an active member of the student body, participating in Key Club, ASB, and football.

“It was definitely a challenge, but I look back now and it’s just like, ‘Wow, at least I got through it,’” said Ramirez. “It was really cool to feel that, especially graduating and knowing, wow, I for sure did this.”

The scholarship is being awarded to Ramirez by Civilian Aide to Secretary of the Army (CASA) Mario Guerra. Guerra has given 15 scholarships since being appointed CASA five years ago, but never to a student in his hometown of Downey.

Guerra said he has “been looking forward to this day.”

“After facing the tragic loss of his grandfather, who was his caretaker, this exceptional young man was faced with the challenge of finding a stable living situation,” Guerra said. “However, the Downey community rallied together, embracing him with open arms and providing unwavering support, ensuring that he could complete his senior year of high school just as he had started it: as an outstanding student, athlete, and all-around remarkable individual. He took honors classes and excelled with an amazing GPA. He even worked three jobs during his senior year. Before being sworn in last week he recorded some of the highest testing available in our Army. He basically can choose any of 150 different careers paths available to him. He chose to study finance.”

Guerra continued:

“Congratulations to him and our DUSD family who embraced this young man and nurtured his great potential. The leadership at DUSD and Downey High are to be commended. This is a great story of perseverance combined with attitude, effort, and opportunity. And what a small helping hand can mean to a special young man. Armando clearly deserves this scholarship and I look forward to seeing the many great things he will accomplish in the future. And I couldn’t be prouder to be part of the journey for such an outstanding young man.”

The Army wasn’t necessarily on Ramirez’s radar, however, he said he’s happy to do what needs to be done to set him up in the best position.

“It’s kind of like everything else in my life. It’s like, I don’t really think about it twice; it’s just the next thing I’ve got to do, okay let’s knock it out,” said Ramirez. “What’s it going to give me in return? I’m never going to do something that’s not going to eventually benefit me, you know what I mean?

“When it comes to school, work, anything like that, if you’re investing your time for so long into something, you want to make sure it gives you something back.”

Despite all he’s been through, Ramirez continues on with a smile. He says it’s the best way to go about life.

“I’ve always been a positive person. I love positivity. I love to radiate positive energy, and surround myself with positive energy,” said Ramirez. “I feel like if you’re not enjoying your life, all the problems are going to seem a lot more apparent. Things start to seem like they’re worse than what they are.

“Even going through all this couch-surfing stuff, and homeless, and having to work a lot, being stressed out from school, it’s just, when you’re in a happy moment, enjoy it, because you don’t know when the next time you’re going to get a happy moment is.”