EDGEWOOD, Ky. — Life can be tough, but Jaden Allen is tougher.
The senior at Dixie Heights High School in northern Kentucky was forced to move multiple times while growing up, shuttling between different relatives. But instead of being overwhelmed, she overcame.
She has a 4.0 GPA while working multiple part-time jobs. She is vice president of her senior class and vice president of the National Honor Society, as well as an officer with Dixie Scholars. Outside the classroom, she shines on the soccer team, earning the Most Improved Player Award as a freshman and the Hustle Award as a sophomore.
She said she uses her life experience to motivate her.
“Moving place to place, it was really hard on me mentally and emotionally because as a child growing up, you’re like, ‘Well, where is my place? Why can’t I find my place?’” she said. “With that, I just had to rely on support from my friends and my friends’ parents to remind me that you are important, you have a place.”
“That’s helped me; it’s motivated me to do the best I can in school ... so that I can be independent and do everything I can for myself.”
School counselor Nicole Hoffman said she’s impressed by Allen’s grit.
“Some people, when they go through things like that, they don’t have the resiliency to pick themselves back up and go ... but having somebody go through that and then be caring about other people, be empathetic, wanting to help other people, that’s using an experience that wasn’t great and turning into a very positive thing for yourself,” Hoffman said.
Besides Allen’s personal success, she looks out for others, working as a mentor for kids through the Hanner’s Heroes Program, serving meals to the homeless at the Mary Rose Mission and advocating for teen suicide prevention with the Hope Squad.
She said the desire to give back also came from her background.
“That’s important to me because there’s been so many people in my life who have looked after me and have helped me,” Allen said. “That just inspires me to do that for other people because I would not be where I am today if people didn’t give me an extra hand or just check on me and see how I’m doing. So I just want to help people out with that.”
In fact, she’s aiming to make a career out of helping others. Inspired by her aunt and uncle in the medical field, she plans to study nursing in college. She’s already interning at St. Elizabeth Hospital and hopes to be a nurse anesthetist.
“(Patients are) so nervous and in pain,” she said. “Just seeing how you can help them step by step and then afterward, knowing that they had a good visit (and) that they’re getting better, that’s what’s rewarding about it.”
“I think that I’m a very empathetic person, and it’s pretty easy for me to see someone who’s struggling and just give them a hand and try to encourage them.”
That attitude has Hoffman convinced Allen, and her generation can make a difference.
“We live in a tough place right now, but I do have a lot of hope, that Jaden especially and everyone else here, they’re going to make this world a better place,” Hoffman said.
Allen has conquered adversity to achieve, making her a deserving Spectrum News 1 High School Scholar.