Rebekah Weber

Thanks to Eastern Washington University alumni, Rebekah Weber is happy, successful, and teaching developmentally-delayed children.

As the seventh of 10 children in her family, Rebekah grew up in Newport, Washington. After high school, she moved to Spokane, where she earned a community college associate’s degree.

“By the time I enrolled at Eastern, I had been a victim of domestic violence in a marriage that ended in divorce, my self-worth was basically gone, and I was left with no income to support myself and my two young children,” Rebekah says. “I desperately needed an opportunity to be more than what I was told I could be, and to show my daughters how to be strong and independent. With the help of grants and loans, I began my EWU journey.”

When Rebekah took the Introduction to Special Education course in her first quarter at Eastern, she found her calling to be a special education teacher of very young children. She excelled in education classes but came to a huge roadblock near the finish line: She did not have $647 for required state assessments, fingerprinting and certification application fees. Then Rebekah learned about EWU’s Teachers for Teachers Fund, financially supported by alumni to help future teachers pay for those fees. She was selected to receive $300 from the fund.

“It meant the world for my children and me!” Rebekah says.

She set her sights on her dream job of teaching at Spokane Guilds’ School and Neuromuscular Center. Rebekah applied to substitute for vacationing teachers. The day after she graduated from EWU in 2014, she was called by the school to sub for two weeks. At the end of two weeks, they asked her to apply for a position as an early childhood special education teacher.

“Now I have my dream job, providing services for children with special needs up to 3 years old, and leading two preschool classes with a speech-language pathologist, physical therapist, occupational therapist, and team room assistant,” Rebekah says. “I would not be helping those children today if I had not received help from the Teachers for Teachers Fund. In turn, I will be donating to this fund because I know that it will be helping someone as I have been.

In its first two years of existence, the Teachers for Teachers Fund helped 11 students take the final steps to become teachers. More dollars mean more students will be recipients.