Danielle Pruitt is a freshman at Lafayette High school. She is exceptionally smart, but is unfortunately limited by a disease called SMA. SMA stands for Spinal Muscular Atrophy. This is a disease that robs people of their physical strength by affecting the motor nerve cells in the spinal cord. In the United States, Spinal Muscular Atrophy affects about one of every six thousand to ten thousand people.  This limits Danielle’s ability to move but her brain is still fully functional and is a wonderful student.

In her middle school years at Jessie Clark Middle School in Lexington, Kentucky, she inspired her fellow classmates by her ability to excel. She is incredibly hardworking and always on top of things.  She maintained a 4.0 GPA throughout all three years, which only a handful of students were able to do. She scored in the 90th percentile in all sub categories on the PSAT. Her math MAP math score was in the 98th percentile and her MAP reading in the 88th percentile.  This fall she was accepted into the Pre-Engineering program at Lafayette.

“Danielle is such a great person. She is insanely smart and never stops reaching for her goals. Throughout all of the years I have known Danielle, she has always been a positive influence to the ones around her. She is the type of person even in twenty or thirty years I will still look back and be thankful for getting to be her friend”, says Madison Strack, a freshman at Lafayette.

“My experience knowing her and talking to people who know her is that Danielle is such a good person. She has been in a few of my classes in the past and she was always asking questions. She always had something to bring to the conversation. I think that Danielle is definitely the right person for the “Yes I Can” award, ” says Memphis Patterson, a sophomore at Lafayette.

Recently, Danielle has been awarded with Kentucky’s 2018 “Yes I Can” award in academics and earned national recognition. She was nominated by Fayette County Public Schools for this award.   The “Yes I Can” award is presented by The Council for Exceptional Children . This award salutes students with special needs who have made significant accomplishments in one of several categories :  academics, arts, school and community activities, self-advocacy, technology, and transition. Nationally, The Council for Exceptional Children has chosen two winners in each of these categories. Danielle was awarded for one of the spots in the academics category. She will be introduced during the Council’s Indianapolis conference in February of 2019.

Danielle’s story shows that no matter who you are or where you are in life, you can achieve great things . Even in her unfortunate circumstances, Danielle was able to prove to everyone around her that anything is possible .