Rodriguez, who entered her first kinship home at age 5 and foster care at 12, had 20 different placements between ages 5 and 18. Her journey to the Miss America stage began with a desperate search for scholarship money after discovering she was ineligible for tuition assistance.

“I was five years old when I entered my first kinship home, and I was 12 years old when I entered foster care,” Rodriguez said. “And then, of course, you’re handed the trash bag and really taken to a stranger’s house without anyone ever stopping to explain, you know, what’s going on or asking you how you feel about it. So it was very difficult.”

From homelessness to pageant stage

When Rodriguez was 14, she was reunified with her biological mother, who was homeless herself. They lived in an abandoned house for almost a year before Rodriguez made the difficult decision to leave.

“She was working 12-hour shifts, and she was trying to take care of my brother and sister,” Rodriguez said. “And so it was a mix between her not having enough money and it just being a really strained relationship from everything that had happened in my early childhood. And we just decided that it was best if I left. And so that’s when I lived out of my car.”

Rodriguez lived in her car for two years. During her senior year of high school, she discovered she wasn’t eligible for tuition scholarships because she left foster care 26 days too early to receive financial aid.

A chance encounter changes everything

Desperate for college funding, Rodriguez searched online for talent competitions, remembering earning money in middle school contests. She found the Miss My Old Kentucky Home Organization and spent all her college savings to compete in the local pageant.

“And then I lost. And I was devastated,” Rodriguez said. “And a director came up to me. Her name is Kimberly Lyle. And she said, ‘If you want to go to Miss Kentucky, we’ll get you there.’”

Lyle organized a fundraiser that raised enough money for Rodriguez to compete for two years. Her third year competing proved to be the charm.

“I never in a million years would have thought that I would walk away with Miss Kentucky,” Rodriguez said. “When I was on the stage, I just kept touching the sash to try to, you know, realize that it wasn’t just a dream. It just felt so unreal.”

Making Miss America history

At Miss America, Rodriguez achieved what no foster care alumna had accomplished before, placing in the Top 11. She earned an additional $4,000 in scholarship money.

“I was the first alumna of the foster care system to ever make Top 11 at Miss America in all of Miss America history,” Rodriguez said. “And so even though I didn’t walk away with the title, I walked away with so much more because I’d represented a community.”

Rodriguez plans to spend her year of service educating the public about foster care issues through her “Lucky Ones” podcast and the Suitcase Project, which collects suitcases for youth in foster care who are typically given trash bags for their belongings.

“I didn’t really do this for me. I kept going in pageants and in college even when it got hard because I wanted my brother and sister to have a role model to look up to,” Rodriguez said. “Someone who didn’t fall into the statistics of being in foster care.”

Rodriguez will continue her degree at the University of Kentucky after her reign ends. She hopes to one day run an independent living facility for youth who exit the foster care system.

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