The 2025 Sylvester Wiggins Veterans Scholarship
The Sylvester Wiggins Veterans Scholarship aids U.S. Veterans pursuing an acting career. I created the scholarship to contribute to my fellow Veterans and our Veteran community. The scholarship is in honor of my forever shipmate, my best friend, and the brother I never had, Mr. Sylvester Wiggins. He is the best person I will ever have the honor of knowing.
I met Sylvester while stationed on the USS Fife over 25 years ago. In 2020, when I decided to chuck my corporate job and return to acting, he supported and encouraged me without the usual skeptical look or eye-roll I noticed from others. He is not a fellow actor, but he always makes time to rehearse with me or read for me when I have a self-tape audition. And he never fails to show excitement for every production I am in, even when I end up with only two seconds of screen time.
Timing is not my friend; I returned to pursue my acting career in March 2020. Yeah, we all know what happened that month and year. California and Los Angeles leadership, and I say that in the loosest sense of the word, lost their damn minds and shut the state down for months. I did my best to stay afloat with savings and the joke that is unemployment. But I was hemorrhaging cash, Los Angeles is expensive y’all. After nine months of “just two more weeks” and two California Highway Patrolmen showing up at my front door because I called Gruesome Newsom an idiot on Instagram, and said no one would miss him when he was gone, meaning out of office, I decided it was time to leave L.A. behind. Broke and heartbroken, my dear friend helped me stay afloat over the next two years and allowed me to continue to pursue an acting career. Sylvester truly was the Chandler to my Joey, helping me pay for my acting classes, headshots, travel, and living expenses.
Sylvester never once made me feel guilty or ashamed asking for help. His words, “I know you will pay me back when you are back on your feet, you always bounce back.” And I did. It took some time, but I paid him back. I wish I could say it was because I got that elusive acting job that gave me the big payday. You know that payday we all hope for, series regular or lead role in a movie. But alas, I am still grinding like 99% of the industry. Booking, but still need my day job. I’m blessed to have a day job that is remote, flexible, and with a boss that supports my acting endeavors. Despite occasionally booking roles and having a good day job, it is my prior naval service that has given me a financial cushion for the first time in my life. I believe in respecting karma and paying my blessings forward, which is why I created this scholarship, to do both.
Always Helping w/Auditions
