As a young child, Oriana Dunker spent a lot of time with her maternal grandmother. No babysitter, no daycare—just taking walks, gardening, and hanging out with “an old soul,” Oriana says. Conversations with her grandmother and some moments of reflection helped her decide she would be open-minded to any and all opportunities.
One of her first passions was writing. Oriana’s mom encouraged her to read from an early age, which helped her keep up with her older siblings and cousins. When they started writing, she did, too. Soon after Oriana entered school, she joined 826 Boston, an afterschool tutoring program in her neighborhood that also offered a creative writing workshop. Student stories, including Oriana’s, got published. She says, “Seeing my writing in a real, physical book that was put in a library really inspired me.” Oriana became a tutor herself as soon as she met 826 Boston’s age requirement of 14. It was her first job. “I applied the night of my birthday,” she remembers. “I was super-excited, super-ready.”
“Seeing my writing in a real, physical book that was put in a library really inspired me.”
A Philosophy of Service
“I like being good at things, but it doesn’t really have any impact unless you’re helping other people with what you have.”
Tutoring may not have given Oriana much material gain, but she says it was “a way better feeling than just me doing great by myself.”
In June 2024, Oriana wrapped up her junior year of high school. She spent the summer as a camp counselor at the Ron Burton Training Village and doing outreach for the Massachusetts Coalition for Occupational Safety and Health, where she’d worked previous summers, educating fellow teens about their rights as employees. She was also planning her college essay and the projects she wanted to take on as Boston Latin’s senior class president, an office she’d been elected to the previous spring.
But two weeks before school started, Oriana got shot. She and her longtime best friend were enjoying themselves at Boston’s annual Dominican Festival near Franklin Park when they were caught in a random shooting that injured five people. No one was killed, but Oriana’s femur was shattered. She underwent multiple surgeries. She had to use a wheelchair for three and half months and crutches for another three months. The shooter was never caught.
3.5 Months in wheelchair
3 Months on crutches
Multiple surgeries
“There was no going back,” Oriana says.
“After that night, I was someone who had gotten shot, and there was nothing I could do to change that.” She felt overwhelmed when she got out of the hospital, and considered not returning to school for a while. She, along with other people in her life, questioned her plan to apply to college.
She was even reluctant to join in her school’s tradition of seniors watching the sun rise together in a park before the first day of school. The park is hilly and rocky; navigating in a wheelchair would be bumpy and difficult. Oriana’s mom told her, “That’s fine if that’s your choice, but I want you to have the senior year that you wanted to have before any of this happened.”
Oriana decided to go watch the sun rise. She applied to college as planned.
“I couldn’t control how fast my body healed, and I couldn’t control the police investigation.
But I had total control over how hard I worked in PT, how hard I worked in school.”
She found solace in her faith in God — ”it’s something that I’m loud and proud about,” she says——and she got involved in gun violence prevention and disability rights advocacy. “I couldn’t control how fast my body healed, and I couldn’t control the police investigation,” she says. “But I had total control over how hard I worked in PT, how hard I worked in school. It was extremely difficult to get out of the slump I was in, but I figured it out.” Oriana persevered. She relied on her faith, hard work and a positive attitude.
Oriana is now a first-year student at Yale University, where she wants to “try everything,” she says, especially because she knows the Corey’s Scholars Program has got her back.
“I’m the first person in my family to go to a school like Yale, and I have a good mindset about bringing my own seat to the table,” she says. “I have been in rooms where people clearly weren’t expecting anything from me—being who I am, looking the way I look, coming from where I come from. But knowing that I have people who want to see me succeed and do good things takes a huge weight off my shoulders.”
Oriana told her story at the Corey C. Griffin Foundation’s annual Boston Winter Ball, where she also received the 2025 Youth Courage Award. She feels a kinship with Corey. “Hearing about what he stood for, being someone who helped others and served others, I identified with that,” she says. “I feel like I can speak up for people who can’t speak up themselves. I’m a survivor, and unfortunately, there are people who are victims and don’t get to share their story.”
Oriana told her story at the Boston Winter Ball where she received the 2025 Youth Courage Award.
Delivering a speech to more than a thousand people at the Boston Winter Ball may have been stressful, but serving as class president at Boston Latin had already taught Oriana that she liked being able to make an impact.
Now she’s thinking about law school and maybe a career in politics. She interned for Massachusetts Rep. Brandy Fluker-Reid the summer before she started college, and appreciated everything about it, from walking up the marble staircase in the State House to taking constituent calls. “One thing we need right now is politicians who care about people,” Oriana says. “Someone has to be willing to stand up and try to make a difference. If not me, then who?”
“I’m a survivor, and unfortunately, there are people who are victims and don’t get to share their story.”
If not me, then who?
“One thing we need right now is politicians who care about people. Someone has to be willing to stand up and try to make a difference.”
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