Sam’s Story

In 1998, when he was just 9-years-old, Sam Johnson watched from a hilltop as his village burned. His father lay dead somewhere below, one of the countless victims of rebel mayhem sweeping across Liberia. His mother hurried her five young children into the forest; then she led her family north, traveling at night to have a better chance of avoiding the roving militias. 

The Johnsons were the lucky ones. They actually made it to the U.N. refugee camp at N’Zerekore, in southern Guinea, where Sam, his mother, and his siblings spent the next eight years living in a tent, receiving one small ration of food per day, and hoping against hope for deliverance. 

In February of 2007, the children’s mother also passed away, just one month before the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees transported them to Clarkston, Georgia, east of Atlanta. New American Pathways, Trinity Presbyterian Church and Holy Innocents’ Episcopal School helped the Johnsons establish themselves and obtain an education. 

That summer, a group of teachers and parent volunteers provided intense tutoring for the Johnsons in English, math, and science. Holy Innocents enrolled the four school-aged children in August of 2007: Helena, twins Sam and Kartee, and Elizabeth. Their first day at Holy Innocents marked the first time any of them had actually attended school.

Sam received his high school diploma in 2009 and enrolled in Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. He literally took every course he could, even quitting the soccer team and leaving the game he loved and in which he excelled to focus on his studies. “I wanted to learn everything,” he says. “Like when you don’t have food, I was craving education.”

Sam graduated from Mercer in 2013 after a remarkable career that included quadruple majors in Political Science, International Relations, Women and Gender Studies, and French. His next step was something he had dreamed about since he set foot on the plane six years earlier in Conakry, Guinea; he returned to the camp in which he had spent his childhood, the first step of his plan to help those who had been left behind. “I kept my dream alive and saved up money during college,” Sam says. “I had work study and worked during the summer, and when I graduated, I had about $2,000 to help with.” After sharing his story with a number of Mercer faculty and friends, he received donations which brought that total above $5,000.