The tell-tale sign of another bad night in Nirvana Kamsard’s turbulent life was the shower.
Her father, plagued by drug addiction, would turn on the shower, hoping the white noise would prevent his children from hearing him shooting up in the bathroom.
But she heard. “I remember so clearly thinking, ‘My life isn’t going to be like this,’ ” Kamsard, now 23, said.
Casey Ragghianti was another Portland kid with a family wrecked by substance abuse. “Early in my junior year of high school, I was five minutes late for my curfew,” he recalled. His father and stepmother, who’d been drinking heavily, “flipped out,” Ragghianti recalled. “That night, my dad essentially told me to get out. I said, ‘OK, I’m done.’ ”
Substance abuse can ruin lives. Even innocent bystanders like children can be overwhelmed by the poverty, anxiety and shame associated with addiction. Kamsard and Ragghianti transcended the chaos, thanks to their own strength and the timely intervention of Volunteers of America Oregon. The nonprofit gave each of them an Al Forthan Memorial Scholarship, helping them fund their college educations.
The scholarship program is one of eight beneficiaries of The Oregonian/OregonLive’s 2019 Season of Sharing holiday fundraising campaign.
>>Donate: Give to Volunteers of America Oregon or to the general Season of Sharing fund.
Greg Stone manages a Volunteers of America Oregon residential treatment center in Northeast Portland for alcoholics and addicts. On the side, he launched the Forthan Scholarship in 2006. “I was one guy with $500 in my wallet,” Stone said. That year, he awarded a single scholarship. Since then, the program has given $575,000 to 394 students, including 56 this year.
The scholarship has grown large enough that Stone has brought in another staffer to help administer the program. Volunteers also help.
The scholarship program is funded largely by revenue from Volunteers of America continuing education classes for social workers. Those trainings provided 74 percent, or $426,975, of the scholarship’s total fundraising. For the balance, it relies on foundations and individual donations, Stone said.
Stone named the program after Al Forthan, one of his most memorable clients at the treatment center. “He was a kingpin of criminal behavior in Portland,” Stone said. Forthan had been to prison nine times. He was also a heroin addict.
“When he sobered up, he just had this amazing change of heart,” Stone said.
Forthan went back to college and eventually returned to the treatment facility to counsel other addicts. He suffered from chronic pulmonary disease and died in 2006. “Fourteen years clean,” Stone said.
The Forthan Scholarship is open to any high school senior in Oregon. To qualify, teens must fill out an application that includes an essay about how they have dealt with the hardships associated with addiction.
Some, like Kamsard and Ragghianti, coped with addicted parents. Other applicants have their own substance abuse issues.
Stone makes it a point to read every one. “When you read these stories, it’s pretty horrific. It definitely breaks your heart.”
Kamsard is the child of two immigrants. Her father is Thai, her mother Mexican. Assimilating into American culture wasn’t easy. Her father had been abandoned by his parents and for a time he lived on the streets. Her mother spoke no English.
Kamsard spent much of her time taking care of her younger siblings, trying to shield them from the worst of it. She moved out at 15 and managed to get by living with her boyfriend.and his mother, graduating from Madison High School in 2015. She and her boyfriend married in June and soon will honeymoon in Thailand.
The Forthan scholarship helped her attend Concordia University in Northeast Portland. She got a degree in social work and went to work for the Volunteers of America treatment center.
Her father is now in recovery and has apologized to her. “He said, ‘I’m sorry for taking away your childhood.’ He’s tried to do his best. I told him, ‘All I ask of you is to not put my little sisters through the same thing.’ ”
Casey Ragghianti views the Al Forthan Scholarship he received from Volunteers of America Oregon as a turning point in his life.Ethan Simmie
There’s been no similar rapprochement in Ragghianti’s life.
His relationship with his father remains tenuous at best. He was taken from his mother’s house when he was a toddler and put into foster care, in large part due to her substance abuse. He remained in foster care a full year before his father got custody and took him back.
It wasn’t exactly the deliverance he needed. While hard drugs were his mother’s substance of choice, his father preferred alcohol.
“Growing up, I always thought my life was pretty challenging,” he said. “But I figured others were going through the same thing. I thought it was normal.”
But as he got older, he began avoiding his home and spending long weekends with friends. Then his dad kicked him out of the house. He couch surfed for a time before the parents of a friend from school agreed to take him in.
His Forthan scholarship helped him enroll at Western Oregon University in Monmouth. His first day there, he met the woman he’s now engaged to marry. He transferred to the University of Oregon, where he began taking business classes. He particularly liked the classes he took from the Warsaw Sports Marketing Center.
Now 26, he works at Adidas North America.
Ragghianti said the Forthan scholarship was a turning point for him.
“It was the first moment for me when I had that validation,” he said. “My story mattered. I held my head up a little higher.”
What your donation can do
Any amount: Helps cover college tuition for Oregon students dealing with substance abuse issues.
To donate:
>> Volunteers of America Oregon
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