ROCKFORD, Mich. — An uncertain future for a Rockford High School senior has rallied his fellow students, and now the community, around him.
Shamurat, or Shon as his friends and family call him, is a 19-year-old foreign exchange student who is blind.
He graduates at the end of the semester and will have to go back to Kyrgyzstan before potentially returning for college.
All of that is in jeopardy though, as he also has profound loss to his hearing, which is critical to do most functions for a person who is blind.
A surgery would fix it but that costs more than $20,000.
There's also a chance that if he does not have the tuition for college, he wouldn't be able to come back on a visa.
"In utter disbelief that this could even happen, that he would have to go home and back to his life before," said Isabelle Glover, a close friend. "He would know all of the knowledge that he's learned here and everything would be taken from him. No more computers, no more cane, back to the old life that he lived before with very little resources in any way to help him."
Glover organized a GoFundMe, and Shon's story is starting to spread.Click here for more info and to donate!
More than $20,000 has been raised in less than two weeks, and they hope to fulfill the goal to bring Shon back to West Michigan for college.
