Once Homeless, on the Fast Track to Graduate from College

Zachary Logan (c) with Anchor House Foundation President John Murray (l) and Tom Pryor, president of the Anchor House Board of Directors.
Zachary Logan (c) with Anchor House Foundation President John Murray (l) and Tom Pryor, president of the Anchor House Board of Directors.

Zachary Logan was homeless last year and didn’t know what to do, but then he found Anchor House.

A year later, he is a college student majoring in information technology at Montclair State University. He has made the dean’s list every semester and has a 3.78 grade point average and hopes to graduate in 2017. He works at ShopRite 30 hours a week while taking five summer courses, and will begin working at Montclair State’s information technology department later this month.  He plans to become a certified ethical hacker, testing security within computer networks.

“He is also an advocate for at risk youth on campus and in the community,” said Anchor House Executive Director Kim McNear. “He still comes to visit us regularly at Anchor House.  If we have computer issues he comes over and fixes them. He also calls in regularly to check in and share how he doing.”

Logan was honored with the the Douglas McCune Award at the Anchor House Ride for Runaways banquet on Thursday night. McCune, a 16-year Anchor house ride veteran, was killed on the last day of the ride five years ago. The award was created in recognition of his dedication to Anchor House and its mission to serve runaway, abused and neglected children. McCune, a scientist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab, was a top fundraiser for the charity. The Douglas McCune Award is presented annually to an Anchor House teen who demonstrates many of McCune’s qualities, including humility, hard work, academic achievement, and a concern for others.”Thank you to everyone for supporting me through this whole journey,” Logan told more than 200 people Thursday night. “This is one face of the people you are riding for. Five-hundred miles — I couldn’t even fathom doing that. You are taking time out of your daily lives to support something bigger than yourselves and we appreciate it.” “I was at Anchor House last year, homeless with nowhere to go, and I didn’t know where my future was heading,” he said. “Anchor House paid the application fee for me to apply to Montclair State. All the riders are struggling, pushing and sweating our there. I really appreciate it because is is for something bigger.”

Avatar of Krystal Knapp

Krystal Knapp is the founding editor of Planet Princeton. Follow her on Twitter @krystalknapp. She can be reached via email at editor AT planetprinceton.com. Send all letters to the editor and press releases to that email address.