KINGSTON, Jamaica — Eighteen-year-old Toniann Taylor remembers the daily journeys she made from her district of Woodsville in Hanover to Herbert Morrison High School in Montego Bay.

Sometimes, she walked long distances due to a lack of transportation. When she got home late most evenings, Taylor still had to study to achieve.

On August 25, she was among 33 students who received scholarships to pursue tertiary studies, courtesy of the Burger King National Scholarship Programme.

At an awards ceremony held at the Terra Nova Hotel, Taylor walked on stage with a sense of relief, knowing that her aim to become a medical doctor was about to start at the University of the West Indies.

“Receiving this scholarship has been a blessing and I’m very grateful. Burger King has really transformed my life by helping towards my tuition and I want to thank God for this opportunity,” she told the Observer Online.

“I live in a rural village and sometimes it’s only two vehicles transporting people, so in the evenings I would take a long time to get home. Sometimes I had to walk and it would lessen my study time, so I tried to manage my time wisely in order to achieve excellence,” Taylor disclosed.

Despite those struggles, she passed four subjects in the Caribbean Advanced Proficiency Examination (CAPE) Unit One and received eight distinctions in the Caribbean Secondary Education Certificate (CSEC) examinations.

Financially, it was not easy for Taylor’s family. Her father works as a driver while her mother is an office worker.

She remembers when she got news of the scholarship.

“I was doing some voluntary work and I decided to check my email because I had applied for scholarships. When I saw the email from Burger King, a smile came on my face and I just looked out the window and thanked God. I called my parents and told them, and they were so excited, and you could hear the emotions in their voices. It was a celebratory moment for all of us,” Taylor recalled.

Her interest in medicine developed as a child.

“It came from when I was receiving medical care at five years old. I also pursued several volunteer opportunities, and I developed this passion for helping and serving,” said the top Programme of Advancement Through Health and Education (PATH) Region Four student for CSEC in 2023.

This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Burger King National Scholarship Programme. Since its inception, it has awarded more than $106 million in scholarships.

This year, more than $11 million in scholarships were presented to 33 students.