The Power of Opportunity – SJA Student Travel Scholarship Fund
For Alaura Rich ’18, opportunity didn’t just open doors, it reshaped what she believed was possible.
During her time at St. Johnsbury Academy, Alaura encountered experiences that expanded her world far beyond rural Vermont. One of those transformative experiences came through a travel scholarship sponsored by The Rona Jaffe Foundation, which made it possible for her to participate in an international trip to Ghana her junior year in high school, an experience she otherwise could not have afforded.
“At St. Johnsbury Academy, opportunities like this are intentional,” said Headmaster Dr. Sharon Howell. “We know the value of global experiences, and we are grateful to partners like The Rona Jaffe Foundation and the Freeman Foundation who make them accessible to our students.”
That intention is central to the Academy’s mission. Through the Colwell Center for Global Understanding, students engage in travel programs designed to deepen cultural awareness and broaden perspective. Director Glenn Ehrean has helped expand these offerings significantly, creating opportunities that range from cultural immersion to service-based learning, each one designed to challenge students to see beyond their own experience. “The Academy has leveraged the passions and know-how of faculty members to offer travel opportunities that speak to the varied interests of our student body. My colleagues open doors to new experiences and insights.”
For Alaura, the impact was immediate and lasting. “That trip to Ghana was the first time I really understood how different people’s lives can look depending on where they’re born, and how much that’s shaped by access and opportunity. It changed the way I saw the world and helped me start imagining a future where I could be part of creating meaningful change.”
St. Johnsbury Academy became a turning point. After graduating, Alaura enrolled at the University of Vermont as a first-generation college student. There, she continued to build on the confidence and curiosity first cultivated at the Academy. A classroom visit from then–Lieutenant Governor Molly Gray led to an internship in the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, launching a growing career in public service.
She went on to work in state government, political campaigns, and nonprofit organizations focused on expanding equity and opportunity. At UVM, she co-founded a chapter of Leading Women of Tomorrow, encouraging young women to pursue leadership roles in public service.
Her commitment is deeply personal. Raised primarily by a single mother and grandmother in the rural Northeast Kingdom, Alaura experienced firsthand the challenges of limited access and generational poverty. Those early realities and the opportunities that helped her overcome them continue to shape her work today.
Programs like TRIO (Upward Bound, Talent Search, and Student Support Service) is a federally funded program that is designed to support low-income, first-generation college students, played a critical role in that journey. TRIO provides the mentorship, guidance, and encouragement that can make the difference between simply getting to college and truly thriving there. Through Upward Bound and later Student Support Services at the University of Vermont, Alaura found a support system that helped her believe she belonged and gave her the confidence to succeed.
Those experiences, combined with her time abroad, helped shape how she understands access and opportunity on both a local and global scale. In addition to her trip to Ghana in high school, Alaura traveled to Kenya in 2020 through a service-based program, further deepening her understanding of community and economic development across different cultural contexts.
This perspective has also guided her work in reproductive rights. While at UVM, Alaura worked with Planned Parenthood of Northern New England during the passage of Vermont’s Reproductive Liberty Amendment (Proposition 5), contributing to efforts to protect and expand access to reproductive healthcare. Today, she serves on the Advisory Council of the New York Birth Control Access Project, helping expand access to contraception for New Yorkers.
“Access to contraception and family planning is fundamental. It shapes whether and how people are able to pursue education, build careers, and make choices about their futures. I would not be where I am today without that access, and I’ve seen firsthand how it can break cycles of generational poverty and expand what’s possible for women and girls.”
After graduating from the University of Vermont in 2022 with a degree in Community and International Development, Alaura went on to earn her Master of Public Administration in 2024, including graduate coursework in health policy at New York University Wagner School of Public Service. Currently, she serves as a program coordinator at New York University School of Law’s Public Interest Law Center, helping guide hundreds of students each year toward legal careers in public service.
Her impact is already being recognized from receiving the Lawrence K. Forcier Outstanding Senior Award to serving as the keynote alumni speaker for UVM’s First-Generation Student Celebration Day. Most recently, she returned to Washington, D.C., as a TRIO alum, to tell her story and advocate for the very programs that helped make her journey possible.
Each of these experiences continue to inform not only her work in public service, but also her writing. Alaura is currently working on a memoir that explores her upbringing in rural Vermont and connects her personal experiences to broader narratives around class, opportunity, and upward mobility in the United States. The project reflects many of the same values championed by The Rona Jaffe Foundation—supporting young women in finding and using their voices to tell meaningful stories.
“Alaura is a wonderful example of how travel and experiencing new cultures at an opportune moment in a young person’s life can be a catalyst for lifelong growth and change,” said Rona Jaffe Foundation Board Member and past parent Beth McCabe. “The SJA Student Travel Scholarship Fund founded by our Foundation in 2013 provides this opportunity to several students each year. One of our great joys is hearing from those students after their trips and having the chance to share in their remarkable experiences. Each trip has been life changing in some way and that is immensely gratifying. Since its inception, others in the SJA community have joined us to support the Fund thereby ensuring that it will continue to be an important educational opportunity available to Academy students.”
From a scholarship-funded trip in high school to a career dedicated to public service, Alaura’s journey reflects the lasting power of access, support, and belief in what’s possible. “I’m here because people invested in me, over and over again, before I knew what was possible. Now, I get to say that ‘I broke the cycle’ and am able to help others do the same,” shared Alaura. “That’s all that I ever wanted to do, and I’m so grateful for the ways SJA opened the doors for me that made my life today not only a possibility, but a reality.”
