To some $30 may not seem like a lot of money, but for this guy $30 was all it took to change his life for the better.
After losing both parents, Joshua Woods felt incomplete and as though he would never be able to overcome the hand that life had dealt him.
“I was disappointed. Mostly in myself but also at life. I felt like I wasn’t dealt a good hand to begin with. I was in foster care. My father passed away when I was 16. I was the only kid on my block with no guardian,” Woods told FOX 32.
Woods even found himself homeless at one point and sleeping on his sister’s floor, but despite his adversities, and many people telling him he would never amount to anything, he fought back. One morning while walking to work, Woods says he heard a voice tell him to spend the last $30 in his account to apply for Wichita State University; a school in which he had been dreaming about weeks prior.
He told KWCH-TV he could not believe it when he was accepted, but that was just the beginning of another uphill battle.
Woods worked overnight at Target stocking groceries for minimum wage. He got off of work at 8am and would run the five miles to his 9am class, often arriving a few minutes late.
In December, after five years of defying the odds, Woods graduated from Wichita with a degree in communications and a dream to one day work in television news.
“It was hard to hold my tears as I walked across that stage,” Woods said. “To be considered stupid all your life and you graduate from college with a bachelor’s degree. … I don’t know about anyone else, but it was a triumph for me.”