Tiffany Paynter has a month to raise $25,000.It’s the final step in a huge effort by the 30-year-old to get her degree from Queen’s University.She dropped out of the Canadian institution after her family ran into financial difficulties in 2005. Scholarships from the Ross “Blackie” Talbot Foundation and the Green family allowed her to return three years later — and then she got the news her mother Greta Paynter was severely ill with cancer.“We were told it was in remission,” she said. “But at that point it had come back everywhere. It had started in her breasts but had spread. I was told confidentially that I should come home from school; a family friend said it was worse than they were telling me. So again, I didn’t finish what I had started.” Her mother passed away in November 2010.The death left her “in a bad place”, Ms Paynter said.She stayed in Bermuda, teaching poetry and creative writing, but longed to finish her degree. “What helped me get out of that dark place was meeting people who really touched my heart and made me realise that my broken heart was an opportunity as opposed to an obstacle or punishment,” she said. “A friend describes it as my heart breaking open. I became a different person. “Before my mom died I struggled with emotions. That’s why I wrote poetry to begin with because it was so much easier to express my emotions on paper. “But after that loss I’ve been more gentle with myself and others and I just feel like I’m more compassionate and more human.” Ms Paynter returned to school in 2014 year with a $25,000 loan from a friend. She’s now looking for a further $25,000 to pay for tuition, books and accommodation for the coming year. Without it, she will not receive her degree next summer. "You get to a certain point where you get so far and need to ask for help,” she said. “My friend once said, ‘It’s kind to ask for help’, so I’m asking. I don’t know how to go forward without the help of our community.” Her father Gladwin always stressed the importance of a good education while she was growing up.“I grew up in government housing and our family was on government assistance,” she said. “My dad was a bartender and my mom was a waitress, but my dad didn’t want us to live paycheque to paycheque. “They basically borrowed my way through Saltus. I was on scholarship, bursaries and financial assistance and a loan, so all four of these things were helping me pay my way through private schooling.” She graduated from high school as head girl in 2003. That same year she was named Teen Services’ Outstanding Teen of the Year. “All of those accomplishments were to get into university and to have a better life,” she said. “It was for no other reason than to not have to live paycheque to paycheque.” If she is successful, Ms Paynter will join her brother as her family’s first generation of college graduates.“My goal is teach creative writing and poetry to whoever and wherever will have me,” she said. “I want to be certified in the Waldorf teaching method, which isn’t just about intellectual growth, but character and personal growth as well.“It’s just the thing that makes me feel that fire. It’s what I want to do most.”