Dear Friends,

Happy Holidays from The Esperanza Education Fund! Thanks to your support, we've had an amazing year. We invite you to read our annual report reviewing what we accomplished in 2011 and previewing what we aim to achieve in 2012. As you read the report (available here), we hope you will consider making a year-end tax-deductible contribution by clicking here:

Highlights of 2011 include:

• Reviewed more than 350 scholarship applications, interviewed 30 finalists, and awarded $115,000 in scholarships to 13 outstanding students.
• Organized a Career Day for 2009 and 2010 Scholars and a Scholars Orientation for 2011 Scholars.
• Matched 100% of new scholars with mentors in their fields of interest.
  Raised $75,000 for the 2012 Esperanza Scholarship, including a $30,000 grant from the D.C. Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs.
• Launched a strategic plan for long-term growth and stability, including fostering new leaders and possibly expanding to New York City.
• Held a benefit concert and art exhibit at the Carnegie Institution with Taiwanese-American cellist Sophie Shao and Indian-American artist Delna Dastur.

To learn more, click here for our annual report or visit www.esperanzafund.org. To make a tax-deductible gift, visit www.esperanzafund.org/support. To join one of our committees, visit www.esperanzafund.org/support/#Volunteer.

Best wishes for the new year,

Alice Wang
Chair, Board of Directors
The Esperanza Education Fund

On the evening of Thursday, December 8, a capacity audience of Esperanza supporters, scholars and guests filled the ballroom of the Carnegie Institution of Washington for Esperanza’s Third Annual Benefit Concert featuring Taiwanese-American master cellist Sophie Shao and award-winning Indian-American artist Delna Dastur.

Framed by two large-format charcoal and pastel flowers drawn by Ms. Dastur, Ms. Shao gave a bravura performance of the first, second and fourth suites from the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello by Johann Sebastian Bach.  The concert was followed by a champagne reception hosted by WilmerHale LLP in the Carnegie’s marble rotunda that featured the art of Ms. Dastur–vibrant and abstract mixed media pieces that draw “on centuries of Indian culture” and whose “depths suggest the cultural archaeology of a place built from multiple civilizations” (Marc Jenkins, The Washington Post).

We would like to thank everyone who attended the benefit, with special thanks to our reception host WilmerHale LLP and our patrons, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP, Veris Consulting, Ms. Jean Han, Mr. Tom Olson, Ms. Susan Vitka and Ms. Natalie Wexler, for making this wonderful evening possible.

Please see below for photos from the event courtesy of Eventos VIP Pass.

Please join us on the evening of Thursday, December 8 in the ballroom of the Carnegie Institution for a private recital by master cellist Sophie Shao.  Hailed as “eloquent” and “powerful” by The New York Times, Ms. Shao has toured the concert halls of the world—from New York to Paris to Moscow to Tokyo—and gained international acclaim for her elegant interpretations of the classical repertoire.  A recipient of the prestigious Avery Fisher Career Grant at age nineteen, Ms. Shao is a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music and the Yale School of Music and serves on the faculty of Vassar College and the Bard Conservatory of Music.

Ms. Shao will perform selections from the Six Suites for Unaccompanied Cello, J.S. Bach’s lyrical masterpiece rediscovered and popularized by Pablo Casals. Ms. Shao will perform the suites on an 1860 cello made by Honore Derazey and once owned by Mr. Casals himself.

The concert will be followed by a champagne reception in the ballroom of the Carnegie’s marble rotunda.

This will be Esperanza’s third annual winter gala featuring internationally recognized immigrant artists.  (For images from our two previous galas, click here or here.)

For tickets and information on how to sponsor this event, click here.

We’re thrilled to invite you to a fun summer event: we’ve partnered with Macchu Pisco and Lincoln—one of the area’s newest and hottest restaurants (Vermont Ave and L St. NW near McPherson Square)—for a pisco-themed cocktail hour next Monday, August 8th from 5:30 to 8:30. Lincoln’s top-notch barstaff will be mixing up Pisco Sours, Pisco Punch Fizz, and Bianco Fresca to cool you off from the August heat. All of these cocktails will feature Macchu Pisco–a locally-owned spirit whose cocktails won the 2011 Ultimate Cocktail Challenge. Of course, rounding out incredible cocktails and delicious appetizers will be a chance to mix and mingle with your fellow Esperanzanistas–so please bring your friends!

Click here for an invitation–or just come on down. See you Monday!

You’ve heard some of their incredible stories, so we’d like to invite you to meet Esperanza’s 2011 scholars in person! Please join us for Esperanza’s Annual Community Picnic this Saturday, July 30th, at 2-4:30 pm at Picnic Area C-2 in Fort Hunt Park in Alexandria, VA. (8999 Fort Hunt Road, Alexandria, VA 22308.)

Our Community Picnic is a casual, fun opportunity to celebrate another successful year. We’ll have soccer, frisbee, burgers, and veggie-friendly foods, so bring yourself and your guests to mingle, play, and eat. The biggest stars of the event, of course, will be all three classes of our scholars with their friends and families, so please come by to meet these amazing young men and women.
 
If you plan to come, please email rsvp@esperanzafund.org with your name and number of guests by Thursday, July 28th at 5pm.  This is not a fundraiser–just a celebration of all the things you’ve helped us achieve this year, a chance to show off our amazing scholars, and, of course, an opportunity to introduce more people to Esperanza.
 
We look forward to seeing you there!

P.S. Note that we are asking scholars to arrive early at 12:45pm–don’t be confused if you hear about the earlier start time.

After reviewing more than 350 applications and interviewing 35 candidates, we’re thrilled to announce this year’s thirteen Esperanza Scholars.  Thanks to the generous support of the D.C. Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs, our Board of Advisors, and contributors like you, these thirteen Esperanza Scholars will receive a total of $115,000 in college scholarships, which includes $6,472 raised in the last two weeks through our matching gift drive.  Here are their stories:

• A recent immigrant of indigenous Nahuatl origin who grew up in a small Mexican village and worked planting tomatoes. He left his entire family to come to D.C., where he works 40 hours a week while excelling in his schoolwork. Described by one of his teachers as among “the top 1% of students with whom I have worked,” he will attend Montgomery College.
• A young woman who immigrated from India on her own initiative at age 15 to pursue a better education. A national karate champion and award-winning humorist, she has taken 11 college-level math and science classes at her Virginia high school, earned perfect scores on the AP Calculus and Chemistry exams as a junior, and obtained a competitive internship at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. This Fred Wang Memorial Scholar will study engineering at Virginia Commonwealth University.
• A recent immigrant from Guinea who struggled with family abuse and homelessness. She now manages her own household in an independent living facility while maintaining straight A’s at her D.C. public high school. She plans to study nursing at Bowie State University.
• A Colombian-American tri-sport varsity athlete who will be the second student at her Maryland high school to complete both the Academy of Engineering and the International Baccalaureate program. After seeing how her mother’s village in Colombia lacked access to clean water, she was inspired to become a civil engineer. This Providencia Marquez Scholar will enroll in the College Park Scholars Program at the University of Maryland.
• A young woman from Bhutan who spent the first 16 years of her life in a Nepalese refugee camp and fled to the United States after her family’s hut was destroyed in a fire. Despite being afflicted with a painful medical condition, she has maintained a 3.6 GPA and serves as vice-president of a local program for immigrant youth. Grateful for the “new life” that the International Rescue Committee gave her family, she plans to volunteer with the IRC after studying accounting at Salisbury University.
• A Pakistani immigrant who wakes up at 2:30 am every morning to deliver 800 copies of the Washington Post in Northern Virginia. She is vice-president of her high school’s chapter of the Future Business Leaders of America and the anchor of her school’s morning television broadcast. An aspiring physician, she will attend Northern Virginia Community College.
• A young woman who immigrated from Cameroon two years ago and is now the valedictorian of her high school class. Dedicated to fostering communication between the community and local government, she started a student advocacy organization and worked as an intern at the D.C. Council. She plans to study engineering at Frostburg State University.
• A recent immigrant from Vietnam who has maintained a 4.37 GPA and earned perfect scores on five different AP tests while taking care of her younger siblings after school. The daughter of a seamstress, she sews and sells stuffed animals to raise funds for her high school’s reading club. A powerful and passionate writer and speaker, she plans to become a psychologist after studying neuroscience at the University of Virginia.
• A young woman born in D.C. to parents from the Dominican Republic and El Salvador who was a youth resident in poetry at the Smithsonian’s Sackler-Freer Galleries and was her school’s sole representative at American University’s moot court competition. After attending George Mason University, she plans to join the Peace Corps and work for the State Department.
• A Mongolian immigrant who has maintained a 4.36 GPA while serving as concertmaster of her high school orchestra and working to revitalize her school’s student government. A devotee of both ancient Mongolian traditions and modern American pop culture, she will continue her studies at Howard Community College.
• A young woman who immigrated from Nigeria alone and maintained a near-perfect GPA while serving as captain of her schools’ varsity soccer and Quiz Bowl teams while working as a bookkeeper for her aunt’s small business. Inspired by her winning record on her high school mock trial team, this Arce-Aviles Family Scholar will attend Prince George’s Community College and plans to become a lawyer.
• A young man who left his mother and sisters in Ghana two years ago to join his father in the United States and then lost his father to lymphoma just before his senior year in high school. Inspired to become a physician, he has already earned a pharmacy technical license and will study biology at Virginia Commonwealth University.
• A young woman who immigrated to the United States from El Salvador less than two years ago and earned straight A’s in an advanced high school curriculum while working 20 hours a week at Sears. She is also a five-foot-tall weightlifter. After attending West Virginia University, she plans to become an industrial engineer.

We would like to thank all of our supporters for making these scholarships possible, and give a special thanks to Tom Olson and Bruce Berman for sponsoring our final matching gift drive.

As you know, Esperanza’s Scholarship Committee has selected 13 outstanding area high school seniors as our 2011 Esperanza Education Fund Scholars. In addition to the financial scholarships that we have awarded to our newest class of scholars, we also offer our scholars the opportunity to participate in our mentorship program and to match them with a local professional in their field of interest.  We held a great happy hour on Thursday, May 19, and recruited many potential mentors.  But we would still like to recruit more.
 
We ask that you consider becoming a mentor yourself and distribute our summary and application to your friends, family, colleagues, or anyone else who you think would benefit from this rewarding experience. Please review the description of the mentorship program after the jump and, if you’re interested, download the mentor application from our website. Applications are due by Sunday, July 10 via email to Moya Malcolm. The mentorship committee will begin the selection and matching process soon after that.  All applicants will be notified by mid-July, in time for our Esperanza community picnic on Saturday, July 30, to which everyone is invited, and at which mentors and scholars will meet for the first time.

Thanks for all of your support, and we hope to see everyone on July 30 for our community picnic!

More on the mentorship program below….

» Continue reading “Mentors Needed for Esperanza’s 2011 Scholars”

We’re thrilled to inform you that the River Road Unitarian Universalist Congregation’s Latin American Taskforce Network is honoring Esperanza this Saturday, May 7, 2011, from 6:00pm on at its annual Fiesta fundraiser.  The festivities will take place at the RRUUC (6301 River Road, Bethesda, MD) and will include a silent auction, a dinner of Latin American cuisine and, of course, dancing.  For more information, call LATN member Don Chery at (301) 652-0259… or just come on out!

Tickets are $35 for adults, $15 for youths, and $10 for children.  All are welcome; proceeds from the auction will be distributed between Esperanza and needy students in Santa Marta, El Salvador.

Thanks to all of the students who completed a record 350 applications for Esperanza’s 2011 scholarship!  Finalists will be notified shortly. Interviews for finalists will be conducted on May 7-8 and 15.  We anticipate notifying winners on May 16.  If you have any questions, please email our Scholarship Committee at apply@esperanzafund.org.

The application for the 2011 Esperanza Scholarship is now available. Applications are due March 31.

This spring, the Esperanza Education Fund will award at least $100,000 in scholarships—$5,000 two-year scholarships and $10,000 four-year scholarships—to immigrant students in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia, to attend public colleges and universities, regardless of ethnicity, national origin, or immigration status. Funded by a grant from the D.C. Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs (OLA), at least $40,000 will be awarded to D.C. residents.

To apply as a high school senior, please go to: http://apps.esperanzafund.org
To apply as a GED holder, please go to: http://apps.esperanzafund.org/2011/GED/Application.pdf.