Brush with destitution fuels a desire to succeed

Man's scholastic triumph inspires fellow students

Standing outside University Lutheran Church in Harvard Square, Maximilien Yelbi recalled the nights he spent at the homeless shelter last year. He earned a full scholarship to Hamilton College in New York. (Aram Boghosian for The Boston Globe)

Maximilien Yelbi stood outside the Harvard Square church in a half-trance, wondering how it had come to this. Shivering in the January night a year ago, he stared at the basement shelter for several minutes before shuffling through the snow toward the door and the warmth and hot meal beyond.

Months later, in a college essay recounting the past year he spent as a homeless college student, Yelbi recalled the shame he felt that first night at the Harvard Square Homeless Shelter, how he had hidden under his hooded sweatshirt "like a child in his bed."

As the Bunker Hill Community College graduate begins classes at Hamilton College on a full scholarship, he is convinced that crossing the shelter's threshold ultimately proved a blessing.

"Without [the shelter], I would have never met the people who have helped me so much," said Yelbi, an athletic 21-year-old. "Since then, I felt like the hands of God have pushed me in the right direction."

If Yelbi's accomplishment marked a personal triumph and redemption, it also inspired a range of people at Harvard and Bunker Hill to take Yelbi's crucible as their own.

"You can never miss the chance to get one student at a time over the wall," said Wick Sloane, an adjunct professor of English at Bunker Hill who assisted Yelbi with his college search.

Yelbi, who said he moved on his own to Massachusetts from France four years ago for a post-graduate program at a preparatory school in Fitchburg, came to the shelter after exhausting the network of friends and fellow parishioners that had taken him in for more than a year. He soon met several Harvard undergraduates who volunteered at the student-run shelter, and they began him helping toward his goal of attending a four-year college, Harvard University students and college officials said in interviews.

Bouncing from shelter to shelter so as not to exceed maximum stay limits, Yelbi balanced a full load of courses while working three jobs to pay his tuition and living expenses. His new friends helped him research schools, complete financial aid forms, and even bought him a suit for interviews. In November, an acceptance letter from Hamilton College culminated an improbable journey from homelessness to a residential college.

"I still can't believe it," Yelbi said in an interview at Bunker Hill last week, as he prepared to leave for Hamilton, in Clinton, N.Y. "Sometimes I wonder, 'Why me?'

"I am very thankful, and I hope, someday, I can repay what I've been given," he added.

Yelbi said his mother had been deeply worried about his staying in shelters and told him she would pay for him to fly home whenever he wanted. Although sorely tempted, he decided that returning home would be admitting failure and that he had to see things through to a better place.

"I want my brothers to be proud of me and know that if they work hard and want something enough they can do it," said Yelbi, the eldest of five. "And I have always told myself not to run away from my problems."

Still, his daily life was hard, and his spirits were often bleak. At the Harvard shelter, he shared a room with 20 men and stayed at school until late in the evening to avoid it. The stress and uncertainty took a toll and, eventually, his belief that his life would improve wavered.

"I couldn't see an end," he said. "You have faith, but it's hard. I was sad in my heart."

What kept him going, Yelbi said, were four Harvard students: Peter Ganong, Samuel Bakkila, Adam Travis, and Akshata Kadagathur. He keeps their names on a piece of paper in his pocket.

"Without them, none of this happens," he said.

Ganong, a senior from Brookline, said that Yelbi's age and status as a full-time student immediately set him apart from the other residents and that he and other students soon embraced his cause. "Max is a person of incredible strength," he said.

Monica Inzer, Hamilton's dean of admission and financial aid, said Yelbi's application, particularly his personal essay chronicling the past year, immediately drew strong interest.

"The more we looked at his academic record, the more we realized how talented he is, to have done so well despite so many challenges," she said.

Born in Côte d'Ivoire, Yelbi moved to France when he was 6. He grew up wanting to move to America and after high school was recruited to play basketball at Notre Dame Preparatory School in Fitchburg. A year later, he enrolled at Bunker Hill, first living with fellow members of an African Methodist Episcopal church in Lynn, then a classmate who was also from Côte d'Ivoire.

But that living situation soured, and staying on friends' couches quickly became awkward. Feeling he had nowhere else to turn, he found himself standing in the snow in front of the Harvard shelter, struggling to find the courage to walk in.

Eleven months later, Yelbi believes, his sacrifice was honored. One evening, Yelbi got a text message from Ganong, saying a large envelope from Hamilton College had arrived at Ganong's Harvard mailbox. He rushed to Ganong's dorm, and he and Ganong opened the envelope together.

When Yelbi saw the word congratulations, he began leaping around the room, in a moment that Ganong later described as "pure jubilation."

They looked at the letter more closely, and the news got better. Yelbi had received a full scholarship, room and board included. He fell to the ground, arms outstretched, his fingers straining for the ceiling.

"I felt free," he said.

Peter Schworm can be reached at schworm@globe.com.