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Hope Shing credits Stacy Blair, her French teacher at Essex Street Academy in Manhattan, with helping her believe she can do anything. “She is passionate about what she does and she encouraged me to try things to find my passion.”

Hope found she is passionate about nutrition, or the lack of it. She will study dietetics at New York University in the fall; her goal is to establish a nonprofit food bank to provide healthy alternatives to low-income families.

The 18-year-old has lived most of her life in the Bronx with her single mom, a younger sister and her grandmother, whose “legacy of kindness” has shaped Hope’s goals.

She “used to take me to local churches to feed the homeless,” Hope wrote of her grandmother in an essay. She “believes in giving back to her community. I have tried to live by her example.”

Even at Essex Street, a project- and community service-based school, Hope fulfilled her desire to help people by being a teaching assistant in multiple subjects.

But it was while visiting impoverished areas as a volunteer with New York Cares that Hope became interested in nutrition. “It shocks me when I see how some children look,” she said. “Lethargic, skinny, hungry; I can’t believe children are expected to go to school and perform when they don’t have food to feed their brains.”

Blair said Hope exudes positivity; she doesn’t let personal challenges or financial hardships get in her way. From Blair’s vantage point, Hope’s passion is “for learning and better understanding the world.”

    Hope “sets herself apart from her peers as a mature, responsible, dedicated and extremely bright student,” Blair said.