The Checota scholarship is amazing. I appreciate everything about it... the Checotas understand that your holistic health is so important for you doing well in school.
Jada Moore never intended to take time off from school.
But for her, leaving Milwaukee Area Technical College in January 2025 was an agonizing necessity because a sudden burst of violence disrupted her life.
On January 11, 2025, Moore’s father was shot and killed in Chicago, 10 days after she last talked with him on his 51st birthday.
“It was the worst time of my life. My entire world stopped at that moment,” Moore recalled. “It was a week before I was supposed to go back to school, and I realized there was no way I could go back.”
Instead of continuing her classes, Moore had to identify her father’s body, pack up his belongings, and talk to Chicago police officers and detectives.
“It was so hard,” she said.
Moore returned to school in August 2025 with a heavy heart. But with emotional support from friends and family, and with financial support from the Ellen and Joe Checota MATC Scholarship Program, she thrived and earned a 4.0 grade point average during the Fall semester. She received her technical diploma in the Accounting Assistant program at the college’s Winter Commencement on Saturday, December 13, at Fiserv Forum.
“There have been so many tears,” Moore said. “There were so many times I told myself I can’t do this. There were so many times I told myself I didn’t want to do this.”
Moore credited Brittany Paige-Schuster, a retention coach for Checota Scholarship recipients, with keeping her on track.
“She is an exceptional student,” Paige-Schuster said. “After losing her father and taking a semester off, she came back and maintained a 4.0 grade point average through very intense grief. She has been through a lot.”
Established in August 2022 by longtime Milwaukee residents Ellen and Joe Checota, the Checota MATC Scholarship Program is designed to help students earn a short-term certificate or diploma and get into the workforce quickly. The scholarship covers tuition, course fees, books and required supplies/equipment, child care, food, transportation, and student housing, if needed.
The Checotas committed up to $5 million to the MATC Foundation Inc., the college’s philanthropic partner, to initially fund the scholarship program, the largest scholarship investment in the college’s history.
“The Checota scholarship is amazing,” Moore said. “I appreciate everything about it — the parking passes, the Kroger food cards, having Brittany as a life and career coach. The Checotas understand that your holistic health is so important for you doing well in school.”
Moore was born in Chicago and raised in Milwaukee. She attended middle school and high school at Milwaukee School of Languages. She graduated in 2017 but wasn’t even thinking about higher education.
“I never thought I would go to college,” she said.
Instead she worked at fast food restaurants and day care centers. Her dream was to become a celebrity makeup artist. She packed her things and headed to Atlanta. “That was where you needed to go if you wanted to be big,” she said.
She enjoyed her time. She found some freelance makeup gigs and worked at an Amazon warehouse and at Walgreens store. “It was a time,” she remembered with a smile. “It was crazy. Parties. Fast life. It felt like college but without any classes.”
By July 2023, the party stopped. She had quit her job, couldn’t pay her bills, didn’t have a car and barely had any food. She swallowed her pride and came back to Milwaukee.
She got a job as a teller at Landmark Credit Union and fell in love with the world of finance. “I knew if I could learn to manage money, I could do anything,” she said.
She headed to MATC. She found out about the Checota scholarship and applied at orientation. She did well, earning a spot on the president’s honor roll in the Spring 2024 semester. She also had been becoming more connected to her father.
“Our relationship was rocky, but it was getting better,” Moore said. “We were talking to each other every two weeks or so. On that last day we talked, we talked about his birthday and how he wanted to move forward. He even was talking about giving God a chance, finding a church he’d feel like he belonged to, and possibly going to culinary school.”
Less than two weeks after that conversation, he was shot and killed.
She buried her father and sorted out her life. She worked at the credit union. Slowly, she concluded she needed to go back and finish what she started, despite how hard it might be.
During the Fall 2025 semester, Moore excelled academically and became a student member of both the Wisconsin Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the National Association of Black Accountants.
Today, although the pain of loss is still there, she is ready to move forward.
“At one time in my life, I thought that being a makeup artist was going to be the life for me. But I chose to be where I am now,” Moore said. “I have become passionate about learning. I’m learning a lot about life, and I’m succeeding.”
Learn about MATC’s scholarship opportunities
About MATC: Wisconsin’s largest technical college and one of the most diverse two-year institutions in the Midwest, Milwaukee Area Technical College is a key driver of southeastern Wisconsin’s economy and has provided innovative education in the region since 1912. More than 30,000 students per year attend the college’s four campuses and community-based sites or learn online. MATC offers affordable and accessible education and training opportunities that empower and transform lives in the community. The college offers more than 180 academic programs — many that prepare students for jobs immediately upon completion and others that provide transfer options leading to bachelor’s degrees with more than 40 four-year colleges and universities. Overwhelmingly, MATC graduates build careers and businesses in southeastern Wisconsin. The college is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission.