Camden teen earns Temple's first Katz scholarship

As Indonesia N. Young of Camden packs up to go to Temple University next week, one of the treasures she'll take along is a photo album made by her mother.

"This album is dedicated to all the ppl who didn't believe Our Dream," Ericka R. Young wrote to her daughter. "We was just trying to leave the Hood! You made it!"

Like the classic Biggie Smalls song, "Juicy," which Ericka referenced, the photo album tells the story of a kid in poverty rising to success.

Seeing her single mother struggle, Indonesia knew what she had to do: "I needed to go to college and graduate and get out of the ghetto in order to live the way I really wanted to live. I wasn't having a baby at 15 at all. That was already established."

From Catholic middle school on, Indonesia has focused on her studies, volunteer work, and jobs. Her efforts recently paid off in a surprising way.

Indonesia, a Camden Catholic High School graduate, picked Temple from among the 10 schools that accepted her and was working and applying for loans to cover her $15,000 in annual costs after financial aid. Then she learned she'd been selected to receive a new full-ride scholarship, covering tuition, room, board, mandatory fees, and books for four years.

"She just was like, 'Oh my God,' in shock," recalled her mother, who had expected the letter that arrived from Temple to be a tuition bill. "She always said that people forgot about the kids in Camden. And at that moment, she realized they didn't."

Earlier this year, Temple University trustees pooled together $500,000 to endow a scholarship in memory of Lewis Katz, a university trustee and philanthropist who was killed in a May 2014 jet crash in Massachusetts. Katz, a co-owner of The Inquirer, was born in Camden and received a scholarship to Temple that he later credited with changing his life.

The university still is accepting donations for the Katz scholarship fund, which will be directed toward Camden students. At its current funding, there will be one "Katz scholar" at a time. Indonesia will receive the money until she graduates, at which point another student will be selected.

"We wanted to as closely as possible emulate Lewis Katz, so one of the huge criteria was somebody from the Camden area," said James Dicker, Temple's vice president of institutional advancement. "Looking for people who come from a similar background and embody his ideals in terms of community service, being active outside of just what's going on in school."

Katz was known for giving to people who did not ask for help, often anonymously or without fanfare, Dicker said. Katz scholars will be picked by the admissions office; there is no application.

The scholarship will relieve Indonesia of financial worries - she's been working since age 14 - and allow her to focus on what she hopes will be an English major and business minor.

Over the summer, she worked five nights a week, 10 p.m. to 7 a.m., at Walmart to save money for school.

Last week, after learning the news, she splurged on a cellphone - an expense she had eliminated during high school. Ericka saved to buy her daughter a laptop, so she wouldn't be at a disadvantage at Temple.

Ericka was determined that Indonesia not repeat her - and her grandmother's - mistake of getting pregnant as a teenager.

"My mom had her first baby at 12," Ericka said. "And with me, I stepped it up as far as actually graduating, when my mom didn't complete seventh grade. . . . So with her, she has to get that degree, because her mom didn't. So it's just stepping it up a notch."

Ericka sent Indonesia to Catholic school with the help of 10 benefactors. At the top of her class in eighth grade, Indonesia caught the notice of local philanthropist John Langan, founder and head of Berlin-based Townsend Press, which produces educational materials. His Townsend Foundation gives scholarships each year to top students from parochial schools in and near Camden. That full scholarship allowed Indonesia to attend Camden Catholic, where tuition is about $8,500.

Indonesia's background gave her the motivation to do well, she said, and she graduated with a 3.9 grade-point average. "I wasn't going to sit back and just lollygag. No, I took hard courses, hard classes. I studied for the SATs," she said.

The summer before her senior year, Indonesia worked full time and then went home and studied for the SATs each night, said Deborah Grandinetti, the Townsend Foundation employee who oversees the high school scholarship programs.

Indonesia raised her SAT score 200 points.

"If I were to use only one word to describe her, in terms of the behavior that I've seen, it would be impeccable. She's got a quiet strength, but a real drive to succeed," said Grandinetti, Indonesia's mentor.

People whom Indonesia knew as a kid are now having children themselves, she said, continuing the cycle she worked so hard to break. She and her mother isolated themselves, they said - an island, like the archipelago country with which Indonesia shares a name.

"I tried to spend as much time as possible with her," Ericka said. "This is what we do: We sit, we watch TV, and we're like little homebodies."

Indonesia said she succeeded, in part, because she was able to avoid "following the crowd."

"I had a lot of responsibility at a young age," she said. "You kind of got to grow up a little bit faster than you normally would, but it kind of sets you up to be responsible and not to make those wrong decisions."

Indonesia said she's ready for college.

"I expect it to be hard, but I already have good study habits," she said. "I'll learn as I go. But I'm prepared for anything."

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