Scholars Latino Initiative Scholarships

Scholars’ Latino Initiative is thrilled to begin another semester of meaningful service and enrichment. To start off the year, our SLI Student Executive Board came together to organize and improve on the structure of our organization and set goals for the 2009-2010 school year. The exciting new changes, including more focused and intensive committee work, promise to enable a more efficient and effective realization of SLI’s mission of helping Latino students pursue their dreams of higher education.

Our first group event of the year was our annual SLI Fall Fiesta, which brought together mentees, mentors, and families of the junior and senior classes to rekindle their relationships and renew academic and personal goals. Maintaining regular contact with their SLI mentors at UNC, our junior and senior mentees are hard at work preparing for the next phase in their education. In all of our three sites, Siler City, Lee County, and Asheboro, our juniors are focusing on academic improvement and SAT preparation, while our seniors are busy compiling essays and information for their college acceptance and scholarship applications.

This past week, the Scholars’ Latino Initiative was honored and excited to present our new sophomore class of mentors and mentees. At a meet-and-greet event on the UNC campus on Saturday, mentees from all three sites were introduced to their enthusiastic and accomplished SLI mentors. This year’s mentor class is our most diverse group of UNC students ever, containing musicians, dancers, water-skiers, Portuguese speakers, and Swedish, German, Chinese, Spanish, and Turkish students! We are eager to see this new set of mentors and mentees accomplish goals together.

Furthermore, at the beginning of this school year, SLI was thrilled to see the UNC campus explore the issues faced by Latino immigrants through A Home on the Field, a book by SLI Board Member Paul Cuadros and the required summer reading book for incoming freshman. After studying the book over the summer, UNC first year students participated in discussion sessions in which they delved into the difficult issues presented in A Home on the Field and educated themselves about the precarious position of Latino immigrants in North Carolina.

As the fall semester progresses, SLI will continue to support our scholars and their communities. We truly appreciate your support as we strive to make positive changes in the lives of our participants!

Scholars Latino Initiative is celebrating the close of another year of outstanding growth and service. This past year alone, SLI participants racked up nearly 8,000 hours of community service. SLI’s dedication to service helped earn UNC-Chapel Hill a spot on the President’s Higher Education Community Service Honor Roll with Distinction, a prestigious recognition for commitment to service and civic engagement. SLI was specified as one of five organizations that helped the University earn this distinction. We’d like to highlight one of this year’s outstanding graduates. Oswaldo “Oz” Contreras, a SLI program participant and student at Jordan Matthews High School, earned the prestigious Morehead-Cain Scholarship to attend UNC-Chapel Hill. His parents, who completed only elementary school, escaped a civil war in El Salvador. Oz excels in his AP classes, serves as captain of his school’s soccer team, translates his family’s bills and mail, and frequently wakes up before dawn to earn money before school starts. Oz’s story was recently featured on the NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. (See it here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#27200009) The Morehead-Cain, widely recognized as one of the most distinguished undergraduate scholarships in the world, covers full tuition and all expenses for four years of study, as well as summer enrichment programs and grants for personal exploration.

To raise awareness and scholarship funds, SLI hosted a benefit dinner on February 27th , 2009, in the FedEx Global Education Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. The dinner, which drew nearly 150 guests, featured campus “celebrity waiters,” including as Rhodes Scholars, the Student Body President, Chancellor Emeritus Moeser, favorite professors, and members of the women’s national championship soccer team. Douglas García, Assistant Secretary of Education for the Commonwealth of Virginia, was the keynote speaker, addressing issues regarding Latinos in education. SLI mentors and mentees also shared their personal stories with guests.

Finally, A Home on the Field, by SLI board member Paul Cuadros, was recently selected as the 2009 Summer Reading Program book at UNC-Chapel Hill which is read by all entering freshmen. The book chronicles the story of a Latino high school soccer team in Siler City, where SLI began. A Home on the Field addresses many issues affecting Latino immigrants in North Carolina, telling a story of incredible perseverance in the face of tough obstacles.

SLI is making a marked difference in the lives of our scholars and their communities, and we look forward to your continued support as our program grows!