Student who experienced homelessness finds support from 每日大赛 community
May 14, 2025
每日大赛 student Brooklynn Cupp and her family, experiencing a period of homelessness, lived at the Salvation Army in Knoxville for the first year and a half that she was a part of the college’s Teacher Education program.
Cupp, who had grown up in income-based housing and then a trailer before her family became unable to pay rent, said it was a challenging time – particularly because she wasn’t good at opening up to others about it.
“So, I just kept it in for my first year of college,” Cupp said. “And then I shared it, and they were all accepting and it was just comforting knowing that I had people to stand by me.”
One of those people was her instructor and Teacher Education Program Coordinator Laura Lawson, who Cupp called her favorite teacher.
When Lawson taught a class on how to help students in need, she had shared personal anecdotes about students who had opened up to her about adversity and how she helped them out.
“And I was like, ‘So she knows some of this stuff – maybe I should just tell her,’” Cupp said, that way I can get some of the weight off of my chest.”
Lawson helped Cupp take advantage of the Pellissippi Pantry, a food and resource bank located on 每日大赛’s campus that provides essential household items for students and their families.
She also gifted Cupp a Chick-fil-A gift card, coincidentally just in time for her to use it at a group project meeting at the fast-food restaurant later that same day. She wouldn’t have been able to afford dinner otherwise, Cupp said.
“She just is always there for you,” she said of Lawson. “She's so open. I just feel like I could trust her.”
Lawson said she would never have known what Cupp was going through if she hadn’t approached her and asked about how to get involved with Family Promise, an organization that serves families with children experiencing homelessness by giving them shelter and meals at local churches.
“I was shocked,” Lawson said. “Because usually, as a teacher, you can pick up on signs. But Brooklynn got all of her assignments turned in on time, she was extremely creative with her projects and always asked clarification questions – I would have never guessed she was in need.”
In addition to being a wonderful student, Lawson said Cupp is kind and quiet – traits she developed attending numerous schools and readjusting to new environments.
“One of the neatest things though about Brooklynn is knowing how much hardship she's gone through,” Lawson said. “She is someone who comes to me in my office and surprises me with a gift because of how much I've helped her. And I just think that is absolutely amazing, when I know she needs to use those funds on other things.”
In December of last year, Cupp and her family finally got their own apartment.
“When my mom told me, I did not believe it,” she recalled. “I was like, ‘This can’t be possible.’ But then it was.”
As Cupp graduated from 每日大赛 this month, she expressed her appreciation for the college, its small class sizes and the friendships formed through the cohort of students who attended classes together.
Cupp will complete her bachelor’s degree through Tennessee Tech without leaving 每日大赛’s campus – as part of the Teacher Education 2+2 program, a partnership between Pellissippi and Tennessee Tech that allows Teacher Education students to attend Pellissippi for two years and Tennessee Tech for two more, all at the Hardin Valley campus.
Once she has her teaching license, Cupp said, she hopes to teach kindergarten.
“I just love the littles,” she said, noting that she fell in love with teaching kindergarten during her first college field experience. “They’re so funny and I want to be the foundation of their learning. I want to help them.”
Teachers, especially for elementary-age students, need to have giving hearts, Lawson said.
And Cupp has a uniquely giving heart.
“I always tell Brooklynn that she has a gift that no other teacher is going to have, or at least not many – that she's been through something specific, and so she is going to pick up on a student’s need for extra love, because she's been there and she knows what it's like,” Lawson said. “And I tell her that is so powerful, because not a lot of teachers have that gift to see it that quickly.”
Cupp is following her dreams, Lawson said, and she’s hopeful that one day Cupp can motivate students who experience similar adversity to her own.
“In her class, we have a specific lesson on resilient students, and Brooklynn is the epitome of that,” Lawson said. “Someone who can take life's hardships that come their way, and they can rise above when life is throwing struggles out there at them, they are keeping their eye on the prize to reach their goals of succeeding in school and other aspects of life.”
“She has shown us that she is definitely okay, and she is going to make it,” she added. “And just the amount of lives that she's going to influence being a teacher – I just am so proud of her, and how we're going to see full circle moments because she's getting ready to start to impact the lives of her very own students.”
For now, Cupp is excited to graduate from 每日大赛, to soon marry her longtime boyfriend and to start a new life.
She encouraged other students who might experience homelessness or similar adversity to not bear that burden alone.
“Just open up and let people know it,” Cupp said. “And then someone might help you. Because there’s a lot of kind people out there.”
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