LAILAH HALL, 2020 Scholarship Recipient Update

Recently, we received a wonderful email from our 2020 scholarship recipient, Lailah Hall, in which she provided an update on her ongoing college career and recent successes. We are so proud of her and wanted to share this update with you.

Letter from Lailah Hall | Jan.13, 2021

“Greetings and Happy New Year!

I hope this email finds you well.

I am Lailah Hall, a first-year agricultural business scholar from Saint Louis, MO. I currently attend Florida A&M University. I was a recent scholarship recipient of 2020 Dorothy I. Heights Scholarship.

I recently finished my first semester and am currently starting my second semester of freshman year, but I wanted to share many of my accomplishments for this year.

I was able to stay on top of my coursework and classes, and finished my first semester (in the middle of a pandemic) with a 3.75 GPA. I was able to successfully make it on the Dean’s List.

In September, I was elected to be the Vice President of the Florida Farm Bureau Chapter at FAMU. This is a new organization on campus which is dedicated to exposing students studying agriculture to the world of agriculture by immersing them in activities, community service, and networking.

In October, I was selected to attend the AFA Conference. This was a leadership institute that selected a handful of students studying agriculture to speak with top leaders and companies in the agricultural industry. There, I was able to properly attain a lump sum of information from and interview with a number of companies; while also networking with other driven and like-minded students like myself. During this month, I also competed in the Network For Teaching Entrepreneurship national competition for a business I pitched earlier of 2020 that served to end the dominion of food deserts. We made it third place in the Saint Louis competition, and were able to go to nationals. Unfortunately, we did not advance to be national winners but we made it so far and I am extremely proud of that! We were also featured in the STL American for our business. 

In December, I was selected to be an Impressions of Beauty Campus Ambassador. Impressions of Beauty is an organization on campus that tries to get more people passionate about the beauty and natural hair care industry.

Currently, I am participating in the Goldman Sachs Market Madness: HBCU Possibilities program that teaches students more about the financial services industry while also allowing us to compete in competitions, network with 7 other HBCUs, and interview for a chance to secure an internship for summer 2022.

Thank you all again so much for the funding for my academic studies! I still am extremely grateful for the opportunity and hopefully I will be able to apply again this year!

Kind Regards,

Lailah Hall”