With her perfect credit rating, a USF St. Petersburg student qualified for a mortgage to buy her family a house.
By MARY JANE PARK
Published June 16, 2004
ST. PETERSBURG - She's a psychology major at the University of South Florida St. Petersburg. She founded a support group for young girls through Trinity United Methodist Church. She works in a restaurant near Tyrone Square Mall.
In addition to all that, 21-year-old Denise Nicholas has great credit, and she recently bought a $99,000 house.
Nicholas, her mother, Ann Marie Maynard, and her brothers, Jason and Andrew Nicholas, moved into their new home in the Childs Park neighborhood May 18. It has three bedrooms, two baths, a carport and a fenced-in lawn.
Nicholas, her older brother, Jason, and their mother came to the United States from Trinidad when Nicholas was 5.
Maynard is a certified nurse's assistant who works at College Harbor, and Jason Nicholas is a pastor at Wings Fellowship on 34th Street S.
Denise Nicholas said the family always has given to the church, always has "put something away" toward buying a house.
"We follow the Bible, and that's what it says. You reap what you sow," she said.
At some point, she got a credit card, and she made her payments on time. As the family began looking at properties, she said, a real estate agent told her she had perfect credit, but her mom had no credit record at all.
"It's the weirdest thing," she said. "It was shocking to me."
The family pooled resources, made a down payment, and borrowed enough money to purchase the house. Inside, it is tidy, spare and remarkably uncluttered.
On Memorial Day, Nicholas said, the family had their first cookout at the new place.
"Little things are big for us," she said. "It's a blessing. Every day you wake up, knowing that 30 years from now, it'll be ours."
If something goes wrong, there's no maintenance person to call. But the rent won't go up, she said, and the neighborhood is much quieter than the apartment complex where the family lived before.
"My mom is the backbone" of the operation, Nicholas said.
Maynard was in the audience at the Radisson Hotel & Convention Center on June 3, when the YWCA of Tampa Bay presented one of its Young Women's Leadership Awards to her daughter.
Eyes widened, jaws dropped and applause erupted after a presenter described Denise's accomplishments: Straight-A student. Graduate of Boca Ciega High School, Class of 2001. Long employment history. Earned American citizenship. Organized Trinity Angels, a multiracial support group for 8- to 12-year-old girls who lived near her church. Provided transportation for the girls and a sense of security for their parents, driving them to and from church in her 1991 Chevrolet Corsica.
Nicholas said later she listened to the presentation and realized the announcer was talking about her, but she said: "It's my life. That's just how it is. It's not a big deal. I was so surprised. I was blown away. I was so honored."
After she completes her bachelor's degree, she said, she hopes to work in the schools, then go on to graduate studies and open a clinic that specializes in counseling for teens.
"I always wanted to help young girls," she said of the church group she organized. "I didn't so much want to be that role model but to help any way I could."
