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For Madelyn Payano, everything comes back to family — the kind that you’re born into and the kind that you find. In her life, she’s surrounded by different kinds of families that she relies on to propel her forward.

Payano, a rising junior majoring in philosophy, politics and law and minoring in forensic health, struggled with adjusting to ������Ƶ when she first arrived.

“I went to a predominantly Black high school,” she said. “I had never seen so many white people until I came to Binghamton.”

Payano added that she struggled with making friends at the University at first. All of her peers had very different stories than hers, and she had difficulty relating to them. She longed for the familiarity she had at home, surrounded by people she had grown up with all of her life who understood her in the same way that she understood them.

Still, Payano was able to find a community early on through the Binghamton Enrichment Program (BEP).

BEP is a month-long summer program that Educational Opportunity Program (EOP) students are required to attend right before their first year. For Payano, BEP was a way to find her community, a new family to rely on while Binghamton.

“It helped me find my friends and find people that I could confide in,” she said. “We became our own community, and it’s good to have familiar faces that go through the same things that you do.”

Through EOP, Payano not only expanded her community, but also found a support system. She credits her counselors and mentors for helping her organize her goals and academic life and for helping her through some of the ups and downs of college life.

“My counselor, Aaliyah Johnson, is an amazing human being,” Payano said. “Not only has she helped me academically, but emotionally too. I’m glad to say that she was someone to confide in and get advice from.”

Payano is heavily involved in campus life: she’s an intern for the Dominican Student Association and the Caribbean Student Association, the vice president of multicultural affairs for the Newing College Council, an office assistant in the EOP offices and a student mentor through EOP.

“I’m proud of everything I’m a part of here,” she said. “The hard work I put in to get on the Dean’s List, learning how to network, joining clubs, things like that. I’m proud of all those little achievements, because those are the ones that are going to make it a long way on my resume.”

Payano credits one person for many of her impressive achievements: her older sister.

“If it wasn’t for my sister, I wouldn’t be here,” she said. “She’s the one who told me, ‘Madelyn, you’re going to a four-year school and you’re getting out of this house.’”

That kind of family support is what pushes Payano to excel at college every day, and then to continue her dreams beyond Binghamton.

“My sister is why I want to get a master’s degree. She’s my life. She’s literally my purpose in life,” Payano said.

Payano’s different families — the one she was born into, the one she found in her Bronx neighborhood and the one she’s cultivated at Binghamton — are a constant source of inspiration for her. She said that she feels proud when she looks back at her accomplishments, but she knows that she isn’t finished yet.

“I came from this little block named Kingsbridge in the Bronx and I made it to Binghamton. That might be nothing to some people, but to me, it’s big,” she said. “And this isn’t my last stop. I made it this far, and there’s so much more I can do.”