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Thursday, February 13, 2025

High Achieving Siblings Give Back In Many Ways

The Bervell family (L-R): Michael, a freshman at Harvard; Rachel, a first-year medical student at University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine; mother, Theresa; father, Joseph and Joel Bervell, a junior at Yale.
The Bervell family (L-R): Michael, a freshman at Harvard; Rachel, a first-year medical student at University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine; mother, Theresa; father, Joseph and Joel Bervell, a junior at Yale.

By Lornet Turnbull
Special to the Medium

When Rachel Bervell graduated from Georgetown University last year with a master’s degree in physiology and biophysics, her little brother, Michael, tweeted: “You are one of my biggest inspirations.”

That might seem like a small gesture, but you’d have to know the Bervell siblings to understand its bigger meaning.

At the time, Michael was about to graduate from Kamiak High School in Mukilteo and mulling acceptance offers from Harvard University, where his sister had gotten her undergraduate degree; Yale University, where his big brother, Joel, was pursuing a degree in molecular biology; Princeton University, Wharton and several other schools.

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In selecting Harvard, the youngest Bervell is continuing an Ivy League tradition set by his siblings – Joel, a junior, and Rachel, a first-year medical student in Chicago.

The Bervells are brainy and driven — their standout service and academic accomplishments borne out in awards and recognitions so numerous, “reading off the lists almost makes you tired and want to take a nap,” quipped Seattle-area education advocate Kevin Washington, who knows the family.

A Kamiak High webpage on the school-rating site, Niche.com, lists Joel, Michael and Rachel — in that order — as the three most notable alumni from the school.

They use friendly competition – at least the brothers do — to motivate and spur each other on. And on their respective college campuses their time outside the classroom is a whirl of activities in the areas of health, leadership, and youth, a lot of it aimed at helping others.

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The siblings all are on the board of the student-led organization, Hugs for Ghana, which Rachel started at Kamiak nearly a decade ago to distribute supplies to needy children in schools and clinics in their parents’ home country.

Since its founding, the organization has raised over $75,000 and broadened its scope to include elementary school tutoring and performances at retirement homes.

Yet, the Bervells, according to those who know them, are humble and grounded, achieving their goals by leveraging resources wherever they find them, accepting help where offered, building strong social connections and gaining inspiration and support from peers, mentors, their parents and each other.

“They are a family success story,” said Washington, who met the family through the Portfolio Project, a partnership of the YMCA Black Achievers Program and the United Negro College Fund (UNCF) that helps poor and minority kids prepare for college.

“It will be exciting to watch and see what each of them goes out and becomes,” Washington said. “They have the ability to do some great things.”

An early start

Theresa and Joseph Bervell had no plans to send their children to Ivy League schools.

Immigrants from the West African country of Ghana, they sacrificed and very early on invested both time and effort in their children’s education in the hopes of giving them a solid foot-hold in life.

They filled their Snohomish County home with love, left no room for deprecation and encouraged them to think big, be curious and remain humble.

“As a child, it can be hard to see the extent of the sacrifices our parents make,” Rachel said. “But now that I’m older, I have a greater sense of how their example has been incorporated into my perspectives, personality, my ambitions, goals…”

Not having grown up in the U.S., Theresa, who works at Providence Regional Medical Center in Everett and Joseph, a transportation engineer with Snohomish County, set out to learn as much as they could about the school system.

They recognized right away that educators were only partners in the process of educating their children. Theresa volunteered at their schools, where they were often the only minorities in their classes, and never missed a parent/teacher conference.

All three children excelled in programs for gifted students, played the piano and participated in sports. Rachel said she knew she wanted to be a doctor, “from the time my mom got me my first little stethoscope.”

As working professionals, the couple made time for their children, which for Joseph sometimes came in the early morning hours as he dropped each child off at their respective schools, many hours before he had to be at his job.

“I ended up having these great conversations with my dad as a 7th grader,” Joel said. “It ended up being one of my fondest memories.”

Both parents believe these investments helped create a level of confidence that allows their children to see themselves limited only by their own imagination.

Joseph recalls, when Michael was born, a well-meaning co-worker asking how he planned to pay for his kids’ education.

“Oh, they’ll get scholarships,” he’d told her.

Washington, who said he tried unsuccessfully to get each of the Bervell children to attend Stanford, his alma mater, believes the siblings’ drive and unwavering commitment to hard work, may be what sets them apart from many of their peers.

“It’s one thing to have drive and another to have the capacity to deliver,” he said. “All three have the capacity to deliver, which has to come from the home environment.”

Competition as a motivator

When Michael selected Harvard last year, he tagged Joel on Facebook: “Looks like we’re rivals now.”

In truth, their rivalry had begun long before.

At Kamiak, Michael set out to surpass two of Joel’s accomplishments: his Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) score and the whopping $150,000 in scholarships his big brother had amassed.

Years earlier, Joel had eclipsed Rachel’s awards and scores.

“I used her SAT score as a baseline,” he said.

Michael exceeded both siblings’ SAT scores, although with $60,000 in scholarships, he fell short of reaching Joel’s record.

Rachel may not consider herself part of her brothers’ ongoing rivalry, but she clearly has a prominent role.

“My sister paved the way for my brother and me,” Michael said. “She allowed us to see that an Ivy League education was possible. There are so many capable students out there who don’t even see it as an option.”

Rachel’s ingenuity exposed the brothers to the broad range of scholarships available, especially for high-achieving students of color. Joel said she passed her scholarship lists to him and he in turn passed them to Michael. She read and re-read his scholarship essays, helping him to polish them all.

As student body president at Kamiak, Joel set a goal to meet every student on campus, though he admits he didn’t remember every name. Michael, who was also student body president at Kamiak, is attempting to meet every student at Harvard. It’s been a while since he’s eaten breakfast or lunch alone.

Giving back

Beyond the friendly rivalry, however, the Bervells share a passion for service.

Joel, who is on a pre-med track at Yale, said he believes so many other young people who possess the same drive and capacity as he and his siblings, lack the support they need to reach their goals. It’s why he takes every opportunity to pay it forward.

“I want to make sure I give back to my community,” he said.

All three sit on the board of Hugs for Ghana, which Rachel, it’s CEO, formed after learning how much a stuffed toy her grandmother had taken back to Ghana meant to the child receiving it.

In 2007, she mobilized her Kamiak schoolmates and on-campus classes and clubs – from the Key Club to the leadership, newspaper and broadcasting classes – collecting over 1,000 stuffed animals which were distributed to children in hospitals and orphanages in Ghana.

Joel, the group’s Chief Operating Officer, later used his position as student government president to again rally students, who donated over 6,000 items of school supplies that he personally delivered to orphanages and remote villages.

At Kamiak, Michael extended the group’s reach to provide tutoring for area elementary students and entertainment at retirement homes. He installed a group of student leaders at Kamiak to continue the organization’s work after he graduated last year. Their first fundraiser without the direct involvement of a Bervell raised $6,000.

Now, as executive director and CFO, he’s working to expand Hugs to other countries (there’s already a Hugs for Tanzania) other high schools and to encompass other causes.

And their commitment to service extends beyond their own organization.

Joel, for example, is co-director of the Jones-Zimmerman Academic Mentoring Program that pairs Yale students with sixth- to eight-grade at-risk children at two middle schools in New Haven, Conn.

He is one of two African-American mentors in a program where most of the middle school kids are Latino and African American.

“It’s important to have students see someone who looks like them in this position of leadership,” he said. “We want them to know they can be successful, that they can be a light for someone else.”

Meanwhile, as she explores her options on the way to selecting a medical specialty, Rachel has immersed herself in two programs addressing the needs of the poor and underserved on Chicago’s South Side, giving her insight into the challenges of urban health care.

The person friends and siblings invariably seek out for her practical common sense advice, she believes in the power of mentorship, encouraging other young people to find someone they respect and admire to emulate.

Like his siblings, Michael is interested in medicine, but also has a passion for technology. At Harvard, he’s majoring in philosophy, with a concentration in computer science. He’s landed an internship this summer at Twitter.

He said he finds inspiration in a quote by the late Apple Founder Steve Jobs. Its advice he also gives to other young people.

        “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you and you can change it, you can influence it, you can build your own things that other people can use.”

Looking at it objectively, he said, “I have the same capacity to succeed as these amazing people.”

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