Born to a poor family in Washington, D.C.Rehan Staton was surrounded by drugs and violence. He did his best to stay focused and work towards a better future but ended up barely graduating from high school. With no college options he took the highest paying job he could find as a sanitation worker. He was a little ashamed of how he had turned out because everyone had told him he was so smart. Now there were parents pointing at him and his co workers saying "keep studying so you don't end up like these guys".
He told some coworkers about his feelings and even though they didn't want to go to college they encouraged his dream. Rehan’s coworkers at Bates Trucking and Trash Removal helped him navigate the process of getting into college and he went on to earn a degree with honors from University of Maryland in 2018. Could he go further? He felt like he could so he dreamed big and applied to the Ivy league law schools.
2 years later he eventually gained admission into Harvard Law School in 2020. A video of him receiving his acceptance letter from the prestigious school went viral, which caught the attention of filmmaker Tyler Perry, who offered to pay Staton’s way through school.
Beyond his own achievements, Staton has shown a deep commitment to giving back, raising $70-thousand for Harvard's janitors and support staff and founding an organization to uplift support staff workers. After graduation, Staton is joining the Paul Weiss law firm in New York City and dreams of one day owning a sports team. There’s no doubt that it was his hard work that got him to where he is today, but Staton knows he didn’t do it alone. "At every point in my life,” Staton says, “I can say it was through the act of someone's reciprocity and the community that I was allowed to get to the next level.”