TAMPA, Fla. — Maryam Shehata spent a lot of time recently studying for finals.

The biomedical sciences major is about to begin her senior year at the University of South Florida.

“I got into the major and I loved every subject I did,” Shehata said. “I loved chemistry and biology, and I knew this is like what I wanted to do.” 

But getting to college was not as easy as getting good grades. Shehata immigrated to the U.S. from Egypt with her family when she was six.

During her high school years she was connected to a mentor through Take Stock in Children of Florida. 

“She (her mentor) always told me to keep going, even though I sometimes wanted to give up,” Shehata said. “It was a lot to navigate, especially in high school when it’s just like I’m trying to see if I can get scholarship opportunities and cities and college applications and deadlines. And she was always there.” 

The non-profit Take Stock in Children of Florida supports under-privileged kids with youth mentoring, college readiness, and college scholarships.

“We’re working with low income students. These are students that would not normally ever dream of going to college. And our goal is to help make those dreams a reality,” said Bethany Lacey, the CEO of Take Stock in Children of Florida. 

To support those scholarships, like the one that is funding Shehata’s education, Take Stock in Children sought legislative approval to launch a specialty license plate.

The organization has until September of this year to garner enough support for their this plate statewide.

To do that they need people to sign up for a free voucher. 

“We need 3000 total,” said Lacey. “We’ve secured about 1200 vouchers so far, and so we still need folks to sign up for this voucher. Once we get 3000 people to sign up, we can go into production.”

Then once in production a portion of the money made off the specialty plate will go to Take Stock in Children.

They put the money toward scholarships like Shehata’s.

“Because of Take Stock, I can go on and pursue medicine and not have to worry about as many loans as other students are worrying about and along with the guidance, I have constant support,” said Shehata. 

She has a 4.0 GPA and the goal of becoming a doctor.

Getting a specialty license plate approved is not an easy process, the group had to  have support from a state legislator.

Three supported this including Senator Aaron Bean, Senator Keith Perry and State Representative Alex Rizo.