Dellarontay Readus had moved more times than the number of years he’s been a live.
His mother was blind and all she could afford was a broken down apartment in a bad area, but he didn’t let that stop him. He stuck to his schooling and in 2015, he was accepted in all eight Ivy League schools, decided on a school, and was scheduled to start classes that fall at Stanford University, where he has a full scholarship.
But, just a month before starting classes, his mother Lynn Readus passed away unexpectedly and without life insurance. And as any caring son would do, he was willing to do anything to see that she had a proper burial.
“I can’t do anything else but cry,” confessed Readus. “My momma was honestly my reason for everything I’ve ever done.”
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So he decided that he was going to use his college savings to bury his mom.
“Even if I was to give away everything I have currently, it still wouldn’t be enough,” he said. “So it was just like a really, really, really bad situation. Basically it all comes down to the fact that we’re poor and we don’t have anything.” The family never wanted to ask for money, but when someone convinced him to set up a GoFundMe page, the community stepped up, big time.
Prayers are being answered for the 18-year-old and his family. Donations to help defray funeral costs for his late mother are flooding the GoFundMe website.
“It just blew up,” Dellarontay said. “More and more people kept donating.” The fund reached over $40,000. Much more than they’d every thought.
The Readus family were able to provide a proper burial for Lynn with enough left to purchase a gravestone as well.
After all the excitement and mourning, Dellarontay went on to Stanford and is accomplishing great things.
According to his LinkedIn profile, he is a sophomore at Stanford University majoring in computer science.
“During my freshmen year I attended Programming Methodology, Programming Abstractions, and Computer Organization and Systems courses,” writes Readus. “In the summer of 2016, I had the pleasure of interning at Microsoft as a Microsoft Explore intern where I worked on improving an on-boarding tool for Microsoft employees along with…