2009 Year in Review

As you read the letter, we hope you will consider making a year-end tax-deductible contribution — and help us to award $100,000 in scholarships next year — by clicking here.

Highlights of our inaugural year include:

• January: Incorporated as a 501(c)(3) public charity.
• March: Launched the capital region’s only college scholarship for immigrant students regardless of ethnicity, national origin, or immigration status.
• May: Awarded $50,000 in college scholarships to six promising immigrant students.
• August: Matched our scholars with mentors from the local community.
• October: Secured a generous grant from the District of Columbia Mayor’s Office on Latino Affairs to help start a new scholarship program for GED recipients.
• December: Hosted a gala benefit concert at the Carnegie Institution with renowned pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe.

Best wishes for the new year,

Alice, Alvaro, and the rest of the Esperanza Team

Hailed as “brilliant” (New York Times), “electrifying” (Dallas Morning News), and “an artist to be taken seriously” (Chicago Tribune), Korean-American pianist Elizabeth Joy Roe has captured universal acclaim from critics and audiences alike for her appearances as recitalist, orchestral soloist, and chamber musician. A graduate of the Juilliard School and winner of the William Petschek Piano Debut Recital Award, Ms. Roe has been featured on NPR, BBC, and MTV, and has performed at major venues around the world, including Lincoln Center and Carnegie Hall in New York City; the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC; Salle Cortot in Paris; Salón Dorado in Buenos Aires; the Seoul Arts Center in South Korea; and the Banff Centre in Canada. Ms. Roe is a Steinway Artist.

We will be running our first race, the Veteran’s Day 10K in Washington, DC, on November 15.  Nine of us, the “phalanx,” if you will, will be running with one of the letters of “ESPERANZA” on our shirts, and will run the course as a group.  If you can actually run, or if you just don’t want to run in line, you can also run solo and join us when we all regroup at the finish line.

Register here and please affiliate yourself with “Team Esperanza.” The registration fee is about $28, including fees.  Please try to register by Friday, October 16. We also ask that registrants raise at least $100 to go towards scholarships although we would love for you to raise more; our hope is that we can raise enough money for one more $5,000 scholarship through this event.  If you run, you will get a free Team Esperanza t-shirt, and, of course, everlasting glory.

To support a runner, please go to our Support section.

To kick all of this off, please join us for a Kickoff Happy Hour and Pisco Tasting on Friday, September 25, from 5:00 to 7:30pm at Las Canteras Restaurant in Adams Morgan (2307 18th St. NW). Owner and resident Pisco expert, Gary Lee, will be on hand to prepare custom Pisco cocktails and explain the different varieties of the famous Peruvian brandy. Of course, a portion of all sales of tasty drinks will be dedicated to the Esperanza Fund.

Please RSVP by Tuesday, September 22 to reserve your spot!

Update: Here are a few pictures from the event.  Thanks to Gary Lee and the Canteras staff for a wonderful evening.

As the second-largest Spanish-language newspaper in the D.C. region (circulation 35,000), Washington Hispanic is a major outlet for the local immigrant population.  Huge kudos to our brand new Media & Communications Director, Cheryl Aguilar!

• A math prodigy and son of farmers, ranked third in the nation for physics in his native Vietnam, who obtained perfect scores on his International Baccalaureate and SAT exams for mathematics–despite having arrived in the United States only three years ago, and despite working part-time at Popeye’s ever since.  He will study Physics at the University of Virginia (Charlottesville).
• A budding civil rights activist, who immigrated to the United States from Guatemala four years ago, and has since founded a civil engagement program for local students, Through Our Eyes, that teaches students to address the issues of the day–war, poverty, immigration, etc.–through theatre, poetry, and art.  He will study Sociology at the University of the District of Columbia.
• A St. Lucian student who was abandoned by his parents at a young age, and who has risen to become valedictorian and the captain of the soccer team of his inner-city Baltimore high school.  He will study engineering at Morgan State University.
• A Bolivian student who left high school just months of shy of graduation to financially support his father, and who rose from being a dishwasher to being the manager of a local restaurant.  He will study Information Technology at Northern Virginia Community College (Annandale).
• An Indian-American student who speaks five languages and has conducted scientific research at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and George Washington University.  She will enroll in a eight-year B.S./M.D. medical school program at Virginia Commonwealth University.
• A future community-health advocate, who raised her younger siblings in El Salvador while her parents worked to bring her to the United States.  She aspires to open her own community health and nutrition center, and will study Nutrition at Montgomery College.

Thanks to your generosity, they will receive a total of $50,000 in scholarships to attend public schools in the capital region–more than twice the amount we originally had hoped to award!

You will be able to meet our Esperanza Scholars at our First Annual Community Picnic this summer… details soon!