Rayon Finnikin Supports Marginalized Youth

“The heights by great men reached and kept were not attained by sudden flight, but they while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night.” – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The first time Rayon Finnikin heard that poem was in a Grade 4 class in Bethel Town, Westmoreland, a community near Montego Bay, Jamaica. It would be many years before he understood its meaning. At the time, attending post-secondary education seemed like an impossible dream beyond his reach.

Growing up in Jamaica was hard at times, Finnikin says.

“I grew up in poverty and there were many days I would go to bed hungry.”

Some days he had to skip school to take care of his siblings or help his mother sell at the local market. Often, he would cry in private.

Read full story in Carleton Newsroom…