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 $30,000 will be awarded to D.C. residents.

To apply, please go to: http://apps.esperanzafund.org.

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.

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.

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

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.

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….

Esperanza Mentorship Program Overview

The Esperanza Education Fund, Inc. is a community-financed college scholarship program founded and operated by a diverse, all-volunteer group of young professionals in the capital region. Since our founding in early 2009, we have awarded $125,000 in college scholarships to immigrant students in the District of Columbia, Maryland, and Virginia. Unlike most scholarships of its kind, the Esperanza scholarship is open to all immigrant students regardless of ethnicity, national origin, or immigration status.

In addition to helping our scholars pay for their college tuition, the Esperanza Education Fund offers its scholars the opportunity to participate in an intensive academic and professional mentorship program.  Interested scholars are matched with local mentors who have similar professional interests.  Our mentors are accomplished professionals who are dedicated to giving back to their community – current mentors include a scientist at NASA; doctors at the University of Maryland, the Office of the U.S. Global AIDS Coordinator, and NIH; a development engineer at US AID, and an assistant professor of information technology at John Tyler Community College. 

Each mentor-scholar pair’s relationship is unique, but we encourage each pair to have regular contact over the phone and over email.  In addition, we ask that each mentor visit her scholar on-campus once a year, and that each pair meet in person at least once a quarter. 

The Esperanza Education Fund also hosts three annual events for its scholars.  The first is an orientation session at which our prospective scholars formally accept their scholarships, learn about the investment that the Esperanza Education Fund is making in each of them and their responsibilities as Esperanza Education Fund Scholars.  The second is the Esperanza Education Fund Community Picnic.  Our community picnic is held in August, and is our opportunity to introduce our newly chosen scholars to the Esperanza community.  In March, in preparation for applying for summer internships, the Esperanza Education Fund hosts a Career Day.  This year’s Career Day was hosted by Mr. Clifton Coates, Director of Career Services at the Community College of the District of Columbia, and featured presentations on academic and career development, navigating a college campus as a minority student, resume writing, and interviewing.  Our Career Day concluded with a group dinner at a local restaurant. 

If you are interested in joining the Mentorship Committee, or in becoming a mentor, please contact Moya Malcolm, at moya.malcolm@esperanzafund.org.

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.