Danielle Mosley had no idea Bill Orders wanted to make a difference in someone’s life. And Orders had never met Mosley when he committed to paying for the college education of any young person who had the desire to overcome the disadvantages of growing up in the troubled Viola Street neighborhood in Greenville, S.C.
Nonetheless, these two strangers became partners in a very special relationship. On May 19, Mosley will graduate from Elon College, completing a journey she has made with faith, perseverance and crucial help from a businessman who believed in her.
Mosley’s graduation will be a milestone for many people including her mother, father and three sisters. She will be the first person in her family to graduate from college, and she also carries the mantle of an entire neighborhood which has not produced a college graduate for almost 40 years. Until recently, the Viola Street area in downtown Greenville was rife with poverty and drugs.
The lost promise of the neighborhood and the people who live there grabbed the attention of Bill Orders, a Greenville businessman. Working with the Urban League of the Upstate, which had initiated a revitalization project in the neighborhood in 1992, Orders set out to provide the framework which would enable eager and deserving students from Viola Street to attend college.
“If it was money that was holding these kids back, then I felt obliged to do something about it,” says Orders. So he pledged his money to any Viola Street student who wanted to go to college, filling in the gaps not covered by federal assistance or scholarship monies that students qualify for.
Orders’ generosity made the difference for Mosley, who visited campus soon after learning about Elon at a college fair. “It was the school I wanted to come to, no ifs, ands or buts about it,” Mosley says. “I just knew that somehow God was going to make a way for me to graduate from that school.”
But there was the matter of financing her education. While her parents always provided for the family, Mosley says college would have been out of the question on her father’s income as a car salesman and her mother’s paycheck from an assembly line job.
Throughout her high school career, she had impressed Urban League officials with
her determination and confidence in various programs designed to help the neighborhood’s youth. So they contacted Orders and began to make arrangements to give Mosley the help she needed. Additional funding came from Greenville’s First Baptist Church. Half of Mosley’s tuition, along with room, board and books is covered by the grants. She has taken out student loans and worked on campus to cover the balance.
“It’s a tragedy when young people can’t go after their dreams,” Orders says. “I feel very good about the investment we’ve made in her future.”
Mosley says she’ll never forget the day she found out she would be able to attend Elon. “I was working at Rich’s department store in August before my freshman year,” says Mosley. “I had been thinking that it wasn’t going to work out for me to go to Elon, when my mother called to say that the money had come through. I couldn’t believe it,” she says, with a sense of wonder still in her voice. “That was the beginning of my dream.”
Given the opportunity to go to the only college to which she had applied, Mosley came to Elon and thrived. A psychology major, she has been president of the Student Union Board, worked as a service learning leader during her sophomore year and traveled to the Far East to study abroad in Japan, Thailand and South Korea. She has been on the dean’s list and maintained a 3.1 grade point average. Even more important, she says she developed tremendous relationships while learning a great deal about herself.
“I’ve had a family here,” Mosley says. “I have a great connection with my professors, and they help you reach your goals. At Elon, I’ve learned a lot about myself, how to communicate with a variety of individuals and I’ve learned how to enjoy life – how to get up when things aren’t going your way.”
While she considers her post-graduate opportunities — among them, graduate school in industrial organizational psychology — Mosley is always mindful of the opportunity she was given by a man who refused to accept failure for one of his city’s neighborhoods. She says she understands the obligation that goes with the chance she’s been given to stand as an role model for Viola Street’s children.
“It’s my obligation to work hard,” Mosley says. “If I say, ‘This is my goal,’ and if I don’t make it, then I’ve let them down.”
She has also developed a close relationship with Orders, who she says “has a heart of gold.”
“He said ‘this is your ticket” — that’s a blessing for me,” Mosley says. “And he’s being blessed, because he sees that through his contributions, another student has made it through college.”
Orders agrees. “Somebody said that when you educate your children, you really educate your grandchildren,” Orders says. “It is so personal and such a satisfying thing for me to see someone like Danielle succeed. When I met her, I found that she’s got so much potential, and I feel like it’s all come out.”
-30-