Breeon Buchanan is a Sophomore, Strategic Communications major from Philadelphia Pennsylvania with an amazing story.
He is a true Hamptonian at heart, one who does not take no for answer and who refuses to give up. HerCampus had the opportunity to sit down with this devoted leader who can be an inspiration to us all.
Tell me about your story?
In the spring semester last year, the school told me that I owed $5,000. So I was like, how am I going to get $5,000 out of nowhere? My mom is a single mother, so started applying for some jobs. You name a place, I applied there, but I never got a call back. I was pretty discouraged, and I was wondering what I was going to do. I would walk miles to get to my interviews at times because I didn’t have a car. My friend suggested that I raise some money, and I decided to start a gofundme account. In the first hour I had $130, and I said to myself, this is going to work. I started marketing myself. I started posting on instagram, handing out flyers, etc. My reverend saw what I was doing and decided to invest in me as well and a week later I had a job. The last week I was up to $2,243, but it still wasn’t enough. I needed to get to $5000. In the last 2 days alumni started donating, and with my job and their donations I had over $7,000.
What inspired you to keep going when all the odds were against you?
The most important things that kept me going were the people and my faith. Without God, I wouldn’t have been able to get there. I kept an optimistic mindset, and I basically just never gave up. I kept the mindset that God wouldn’t put me through this if he wasn’t going to get me there. He was going to get me back to Hampton.
Why do you think your gofundme account was so successful? Tell me about your video?
Well my video was about the wealthiest place on earth, soo I told people to invest in me. You have got to check it out! But it starts something like this, “What is the wealthiest place on earth? The wealthiest place on earth is not Dubai, not China, it’s a graveyard. In a graveyard, there are ideas that have never been cultivated, there are dreams that have never been fulfilled, there were people who were scared to chase their dreams, and it takes people like you to invest in a person just like me.”
Check out the video here!
What words of encouragement do you have for someone who feels like giving up?
There is nothing impossible; the word impossible has “I’m possible” in it. If you want success, you should want success so bad. You should want it more than reason like you would rather get success then breathe. That’s what it takes. It takes everything in you, and you have to realize that nothing in this world is impossible. Anything is possible, you just have to want it bad enough.
You’ve already inspired so many people, but what type of legacy do you want to leave at Hampton University?
I want to inspire more kids like me, who are low income, who think that they can’t do something. For my legacy I want people to know that I was that person, and I want to leave a bright light on this campus. It’s not about me, it’s about impacting lives.