Griffin Furlong, who will graduate from First Coast High in Jacksonville next week, will tell his peers to "never give up" -- and he knows whereof he speaks. The 18-year-old and his older brother, Sean, have spent most of their lives in homeless shelters or bouncing from relatives' to friends' couches.
As Today.com reports, Griffin lost his mother to leukemia when he was 6. He, Sean and his father bounced around different shelters in Louisville until moving to Florida when Griffin was in sixth grade. It is not clear what happened to his father.
Both brothers excelled and won scholarships. Sean is scheduled to graduate from Florida State University in August. Griffin aims to go to FSU and major in engineering.