Sean Wong is too modest to tell you that he is a student leader and honor student. At Washington High School in San Francisco, Sean works hard to honor his father’s memory. Up until his freshman year, Sean and his father were a team. His parents divorced when he was five, and his mother left Sean with his dad. There was very little money and Sean’s dad barely got by on what he earned driving a cab. During his freshman year, Sean’s dad suffered a severe brain infection and had to be hospitalized for nearly a month.

To make matters worse, his dad did not have medical insurance. That’s when Sean got to know counselor Jay Kozak who found out that Sean was living alone while his father was in the hospital. On the following Father’s Day, Sean came home from his summer job and found his dad unconscious lying down on the floor. He had a massive stroke, and Sean had to make the critical decisions about the course of his father’s medical care.

After his father passed away, Sean moved in with his grandmother. It is taking time, but Sean is building a new life. He works at a hobby shop to supplement the social security survivor’s benefits of less than five hundred dollars a month. He now lives with his grandmother and looking forward to attending college in the fall.

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