MONROE - In a lifetime, it's not common to have two chances at a dream, let alone one.
A Monroe teen's dream of growing her passion and ability for music, indeed, was resuced - twice.
On Aug. 21, Nicole Heinen, 17, found out she would be attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts, in Interlochen, Mich., for her senior year of high school after a last-minute grant was secured, she said.
"At first I didn't believe my mom. I thought she was joking with me; a real cruel joke," Heinen said.
The would-be second trip to Interlochen almost didn't come to be, following her invitation over the summer, her mother, Rebecca Cherney, said.
While participating in a singing competition in Chicago around Memorial Day, a professor from Interlochen approached her after one of Heinen's performances to encourage her to apply for the school.
The professor was quite complimentary, Heinen said.
"I was just flabbergasted that he came to listen to just me," she said.
Interlochen is a boarding school specializing in several artistic disciplines including music, dance and types of interpretive arts such as painting.
After the initial interest from the professor, Heinen's dream began to fade, Cherney said. The $50,000 tuition cost was insurmountable, even with $20,000 in financial aid through the school, she said.
"With the economy and our financial situation, the only way she could go was if she could get a full scholarship," Cherney said.
A glimmer of hope arrived when the family discovered a grant through the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation in Madison, to cover the balance of the tuition.
But, that glimmer faded, as well. Until Friday, Aug. 21, two weeks after the family applied for the grant.
With just over a week until school was to start Sept. 3, Cherney's husband Jerome got a call that brought him to tears, she said.
This time it was tears of joy.
Jerome Cherney told Rebecca what the representative of the Rowland Foundation had said to him.
"Tell your daughter her dream is coming true, we are going to pick up the rest," Jerome told her.
This wasn't the first time a trip to Interlochen was rescued from a financial pitfall. In the summer of 2008, Heinen and her family were $3,000 short of the $6,000 cost of a summer camp. Monroe residents sent money to pay the remaining cost, Cherney said.
Singing is her artistic focus - and career goal as a voice professor - but Heinen also plays alto saxophone, electric guitar and piano. She got her start in music when Cherney bought her singing lessons as a gift when she was 10 years old.
Now, seven years, three music instructors and numerous public performances later, Nicole starts the first step toward becoming a music teacher at the school in Michigan.
"I am really nervous, it's one thing to be in a community or go to a school ... but it's another thing when you go to Interlochen and one of their main focuses is music," Heinen said.
She doesn't know who her roommate is yet, but she knows a few people from her last visit to the school who she has stayed in touch with, mostly online.
With little time to prepare for the move, the community, including a local medical center that allowed Heinen to receive immunization shots, and a local dentist who let her be seen immediately to meet the school's medical screening requirements, was essential to her current success.
The financial help was important, but everything else the Monroe community has done to aid her has been critical to her musical and social development, Heinen said.
"I think the community has helped shaped who I am and who I will become," she said.
A Monroe teen's dream of growing her passion and ability for music, indeed, was resuced - twice.
On Aug. 21, Nicole Heinen, 17, found out she would be attending the Interlochen Center for the Arts, in Interlochen, Mich., for her senior year of high school after a last-minute grant was secured, she said.
"At first I didn't believe my mom. I thought she was joking with me; a real cruel joke," Heinen said.
The would-be second trip to Interlochen almost didn't come to be, following her invitation over the summer, her mother, Rebecca Cherney, said.
While participating in a singing competition in Chicago around Memorial Day, a professor from Interlochen approached her after one of Heinen's performances to encourage her to apply for the school.
The professor was quite complimentary, Heinen said.
"I was just flabbergasted that he came to listen to just me," she said.
Interlochen is a boarding school specializing in several artistic disciplines including music, dance and types of interpretive arts such as painting.
After the initial interest from the professor, Heinen's dream began to fade, Cherney said. The $50,000 tuition cost was insurmountable, even with $20,000 in financial aid through the school, she said.
"With the economy and our financial situation, the only way she could go was if she could get a full scholarship," Cherney said.
A glimmer of hope arrived when the family discovered a grant through the Pleasant T. Rowland Foundation in Madison, to cover the balance of the tuition.
But, that glimmer faded, as well. Until Friday, Aug. 21, two weeks after the family applied for the grant.
With just over a week until school was to start Sept. 3, Cherney's husband Jerome got a call that brought him to tears, she said.
This time it was tears of joy.
Jerome Cherney told Rebecca what the representative of the Rowland Foundation had said to him.
"Tell your daughter her dream is coming true, we are going to pick up the rest," Jerome told her.
This wasn't the first time a trip to Interlochen was rescued from a financial pitfall. In the summer of 2008, Heinen and her family were $3,000 short of the $6,000 cost of a summer camp. Monroe residents sent money to pay the remaining cost, Cherney said.
Singing is her artistic focus - and career goal as a voice professor - but Heinen also plays alto saxophone, electric guitar and piano. She got her start in music when Cherney bought her singing lessons as a gift when she was 10 years old.
Now, seven years, three music instructors and numerous public performances later, Nicole starts the first step toward becoming a music teacher at the school in Michigan.
"I am really nervous, it's one thing to be in a community or go to a school ... but it's another thing when you go to Interlochen and one of their main focuses is music," Heinen said.
She doesn't know who her roommate is yet, but she knows a few people from her last visit to the school who she has stayed in touch with, mostly online.
With little time to prepare for the move, the community, including a local medical center that allowed Heinen to receive immunization shots, and a local dentist who let her be seen immediately to meet the school's medical screening requirements, was essential to her current success.
The financial help was important, but everything else the Monroe community has done to aid her has been critical to her musical and social development, Heinen said.
"I think the community has helped shaped who I am and who I will become," she said.