Trinitee Lindsey’s older sister, Mahogany, had been offered more than $700,000 in scholarships for college when she graduated a year ago. She challenged Trinitee to beat that.
So Trinitee did with more than $1 million in scholarships offered by colleges from Hampton Roads to California.
She also has 15 college credits already completed and an advanced diploma from the Leadership Center for the Sciences and Engineering at Norview High School in Norfolk.
The 17-year-old just graduated with honors from Norview and plans on starting at Norfolk State University in the fall, where her sister will be a sophomore.
She had her choice of more than 30 schools but decided to accept the full ride to the historically Black university just up the road from her family and their restaurant she hopes to help expand in the future.
After four years of high school, Trinitee said one of the main lessons she learned was to “expect the unexpected.”
“It wasn’t like ‘High School Musical,’” she said. Schools were closed in response to the pandemic her freshman year.
She remembered she had been at track practice the afternoon she heard schools were closing their doors. She never did get back to track once students returned to in-person learning, but she and her family became closer.
It started with small challenges between Trinitee and her sister, Mahogany, who is a year older. These were “little things,” such as working out and eating healthy. After Mahogany was offered hundreds of dollars in scholarships just a year ahead of Trinitee, she said she knew her younger sister could do just as well, if not better, Trinitee said.
When the scholarship offers started to stack up, Trinitee said she was “in awe.” She said it was her sister who inspired her and Mahogany “felt very accomplished” seeing Trinitee succeed. Their time calculating their grade point averages together and going over the different scholarships available to them had paid off.
Trinitee ended up writing 10 to 20 different scholarship and admissions essays, all describing her roots and how her hair is a reflection of those roots and how she worked at her family’s restaurant while going to school during the pandemic.
The Lindsey family opened Our Peoples Soulful Seafood five years ago, and everyone in the family has helped over the years. Trinitee and her sister would participate in their classes online from the van before coming in to help.
Femi Lindsey, their mother, said the girls never complained to her. She watched them push and support each other through the pandemic and beyond, focusing in on their academics and family.
Now that both girls, two of the five Lindsey children, are navigating college and trying to figure out their futures, Femi said she wants them to find their independence. She said working as long as they have with the family, she wants them to know, “you’ve paid your dues,” and now is the time to enjoy college and live for the experience.
“I’m proud of my kids,” Femi said.
Trinitee said she is looking forward to homecoming and potentially studying abroad, though she said she is not sure where she would want to go just yet. For now, she plans on majoring in business and minoring in psychology. She will be a shareholder in the family business after graduating from college, and she said she hopes to help franchise it later on.
First, she and her sister hope to inspire and help other students find scholarship opportunities just like them. The two have made plans to be mentors for high school students grade 10 and up. Likely, they will start by helping their younger siblings to “set the foundation,” Trinitee said.
Trinitee said she would not be where she is today without her family, from her sister pushing her to watching her father, Carlos, lead by example with the restaurant and his “bold entrepreneurship” during rough economic times.
Kelsey Kendall, [email protected]
