Afterglow
From Scholarship Recipients
Receiving thank-yous from our scholarship recipients are pure joy for us. Here are a few recent letters and cards we have received.
Victoria B.
You gave me the honor of receiving the $3,000 scholarship last year and I cannot thank you enough. It was so amazing to know that I had help from the community to get me on my feet. I moved to a two bedroom apartment in Roseville at the beginning of the summer last year and was living with one of my brothers. We recently moved to a three bedroom apartment and I now live with two of my brothers! My parents are totally happy to know that I'm still being watched by my brothers. :)
I still am going to Sac state and after this upcoming fall semester I'll already have 60 units completed and will be a junior! I did however change my major to business due to the fact that after my senior project shadowing a sonographer I realized that the hospital environment was not for me. :( but now that I'm a business major under the concentration of accountancy, I love all of my classes and have been enjoying them so much. I did end my first year with a 3.6 GPA but I am still striving to get that GPA higher.
I am still working very hard to graduate early and am still on track for that goal! I have two jobs now because of the whole increase on expenses and managing to pay everything now that I have more bills to worry about. I babysit three days a week and then I work at an optometry office as a receptionist and do all of the pretesting and checking in and checking out patients. I actually just got hired last week at this optometry office.
I am still beyond grateful for your help and I constantly think about those that helped me last year. I know that without your help and assistance, I wouldn't have been able to finish out that many units my first year. I would definitely welcome the opportunity to meet up now that I'm on my summer break and we live pretty close by! Once again, thank you so much for all your generosity. I am truly blessed to have met such wonderful people who helped me. —Victoria B.
Victoria B. sent a thank you after receiving a Continuation Scholarship in 2016
Dear Davis Family,
Thank you so, so much for the $2,000 Continuation Scholarship! You all have been such a blessing in my life and am so grateful to have met such generous and hard working people. You are always in my thoughts. –Victoria B.
Erin S.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Davis,
I am writing to thank you for the generous $3,000 scholarship. I was beyond happy and sincerely appreciative to learn I was selected as a recipient of your award.
Because of your generosity, it has made it possible for me to attend Cal Polly next fall. Overall, it enabled me to be one step closer to pursuing my dream of starting a nonprofit organization with the skills I earn at Cal Poly and graduate school.
By awarding me the Esperanza Foundation John H. Shrawder Scholarship, you have lightened my financial burden, which allows me to focus more on the most important aspect of school, learning.
My educational pursuits would not be possible without the support from scholarship sponsors like your organization.
Thank you again. From the bottom of my heart,
Erin
Heather H.
Dear Mr. and Mrs William Davis,
Thank you very much for the opportunity to have interviewed for the Esperanza Foundation Scholarship. I was excited when I heard my name! It did not expect to have received this scholarship and consider it a great honor, especially since you were kind enough to wait until after my spring concert was finished. I cannot thank you enough for that. I'd also like to thank you for everything you do for this scholarship that keeps it going and gives graduating seniors a chance at helping with college. I know it will be very beneficial to me and I, along with my fellow classmates, am obliged by the work you put into this.
Attached to this is my verification of enrollment form to Southern Oregon University. I will be starting there on September 26, 2016, and am very eager to do so. Thank you again for this opportunity, I truly appreciate it.
Sincerely,
Heather H.
Dayna C.
Hello Bill,
My name is Dayna Cormany and I am one of your past scholarship recipients from the class of 2014! I spoke with Laury Riggins the other day and she told me that you had expressed immense interest in hearing from some of your past scholarship recipients about how we are doing and where we are going. I was absolutely thrilled when she told me you guys wanted to get in touch. I have a lot that has been going on the past two years and much more coming up. I owe a lot of where I am today to you, your scholarship opportunity, and the whole Assist-A-Grad Program. Before I dive in on what I have been up to, I want to apologize for not being able to attend the symposium you recently held. I wished dearly to attend, but unfortunately my schedule prevented me from doing so. I heard it was a wonderful event, so I was pretty bummed when I couldn't attend.
When I received the scholarship from you in May of 2014, I had little to no idea where I was going to be attending school the following fall. I made the decision to enroll at Feather River College, which I might add, was the best decision of my life. At the time, I wasn't very excited to be going to the local community college. In all honestly, I felt pretty lame. But I made the decision because it was the right choice. I didn't have the slightest clue as to what I wanted to major in and of course because it was really one of my only financially sound options. I realized that I was going to have to live at home because my parents weren’t going to be able to afford paying for my rent and they expressed that they didn't want me working full time because they wanted me to focus on my academics. So I agreed with them and lived at home my entire first year at college. I eventually realized what my circumstances were, and that this college experience wasn't going to be typical. I made the absolute best of my situation, and couldn't have loved that little college more. I made lifelong friends my first year, and met my best friend whom I currently live with now. I placed on the dean’s list for my academic standing the entire first year. And I finally decided what I want to major in. I completely fell in love with Feather River College.
My second year of college came around, and I really wanted to live on my own. I worked really hard and saved my money so that I could try my best to make it happen. I received a few small scholarships because of my academic standing. I was finally able to move out on my own. Some days I regret moving out. It’s hard balancing 16-17 units to graduate on time, and trying to work. But I scraped by and managed to survive a school year out on my own. I remained in good academic standing and was placed on the dean’s list for another school year, and graduated with an associate’s degree this May of 2016.
Since then I’ve applied to the University of Nevada, Reno and was accepted. I have enrolled in classes for the fall of 2016. I plan on getting my bachelor’s degree in Agricultural Science.
So what am I up to right now? Well this is the exciting part. I am an employee of the United States Forest Service. I applied to participate in a tag program that the Forest Service and FRC created together. I am considered a Wildlife Biology Intern. We are collecting data to see where invasive species of crawfish exist in the streams of our national forest! It’s such a wonderful opportunity that I never thought I’d see myself being a part of. I know that it isn’t agricultural science, but I figured that environmental science goes hand in hand with agricultural science. So, I took it as an opportunity to broaden my knowledge and hopefully use the information I gain through the forest service in my future endeavors.
I can’t thank you enough for what you and your wife did for me. With the help of what little money I saved up, and some of your scholarship, I was able to buy my first car. It’s nothing fancy by any means, but it meant transportation. You helped me buy my first two semesters of college textbooks.
I hope you know it’s not just about what you did for me financially, because it’s much deeper than that. It fills me up knowing that I had two people in my life that rooted me on when I was on the brink of the biggest transition of my life and helped see me through my first year of college. I wish you knew how much I appreciate you two. I’m absolutely thrilled that Laury called me and told me you wished to speak to all of us. Life has been rough, but I think I’ve seen rougher days. Sometimes when I feel like giving up, I do look back to where I started back in 2014. Especially right now, trying to balance a 40 hour work week, maintaining a summer class, and trying to figure out how I am going to survive in a whole new city next year that will be very expensive. I am on the hunt for a place to live, so we will see what I find. But I know that my past and current struggles are morphing me into the person I need to be. I hope you guys know that what you are doing is genuinely changing lives.
You‘ve motivated me. You’ve made me feel important. These high school students that are receiving your scholarship aren’t walking away with just money, I guarantee that. Because like me, I walked away humbled. I was raised on a ranch my entire life and I’ve lived and breathed struggle. I’ve watched my family struggle. But I also know what hard work is, and what it can do. I will not stop until I get my bachelor’s degree, and eventually my master’s degree. I would like to be the first person in my family to receive a master’s degree. My dream is to own another ranch one day. I think it would be neat to minor in Agricultural business and work with small ranchers and maybe make their dreams come true. I’m not sure what exactly I’ll do with my degree, but I know I want to make a difference in people’s lives.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I will appreciate you for the rest of my life. I can honestly say that I don’t think I would be where I am today in my academics if it wasn’t for you two. I hope that we never lose touch. I would love to keep you guys in my life and let you know where I am and what I am up to! I look forward to hearing from you both. I hope that all is well with you two. Talk to you soon.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. —Dayna C.
