Something special in Danbury – Latino Scholarship Fund Honors 30 recipients

Thirty graduating high school students from the greater Danbury area were awarded a

Marco Jiminez, LSF Award Recipient total of over $50,000 in scholarship money on Thursday, June 17 by the Latino Scholarship Fund (LSF). Their annual awards ceremony was held at Western Connecticut State University, where family and friends of the recipients gathered with great pride to watch their sons, daughters, nieces and nephews receive their scholarships.

The fund was founded in 1995 by a group of people concerned about the low rate of Latino students graduating from high school and the even less substantial number seeking entrance to colleges and universities. According to the LSF, their mission “seeks to advance the education and career opportunities of Latino students in the Greater Danbury Area, by providing financial assistance for higher education.” And they certainly have, by providing over 280 students with scholarships totaling over $550,000 over the last fifteen years. Recipients of LSF awards have attended such prestigious institutions as Yale, George Washington University, MIT and Penn State.

Katherine Tovar, LSF Award Recipient Marco Jiminez, a Danbury High School student of Salvadoran descent hasn’t decided where he’d like to go to school next year, but regardless of where he chooses to attend, he’s grateful for the award he received from the LSF for the essay he wrote on individuality. Retired Superior Court Judge Carmen Lopez was the keynote speaker at the event, and Joe Taborsak, State Representative for the 109th district, paid a surprise visit to award each of the recipients with official state citations in honor of their achievements.

Although not a recipient of the LSF award, retired Superior Court Judge Carmen Lopez is a brilliant example of what can be accomplished with hard work and dedication.

The recipients of Latino Scholarship Fund Awards 2010 “When I was in eighth grade, Latino girls didn’t go around saying that they wanted to be lawyers, but that’s what I wanted to do,” said Judge Lopez, addressing the audience at the awards ceremony. Lopez says that her “four Ps” formula – Planning, Preparation, Persistence and Prayer – is largely responsible for her success, although an iron-clad will certainly had something to do with it. “If you don’t have something inside to guide you along your path in life you can be led astray,” she stressed. Abner Burgos Rodriguez, Chair of the Latino Scholarship Fund, also gave his parting speech at the event, as he will be resigning from his position this year, after over a decade of service to the Fund. “One sobering statistic that I’ve come across is that 50 percent of Latino students that enter college don’t finish. Forty-five percent of Latinos in Connecticut don’t graduate high school.

You’ve already overcome that hurdle, and there’s no reason to believe that you can’t overcome the next one, but there will be challenges... This is a strong community, and you will be making it stronger.”

Katherine Tovar, another DHS student of Colombian descent, will be attending Naugatuck Valley Community College, and she’s grateful for the $2,500 award she received: “I’m going to a new school, to a new life. I’m thankful for this program. Getting this [award] is very big for me, and it will be extremely helpful.”