2016 Scholarship Honorees Remembered
The Annual Peace and Education Coalition Fundraiser will be held May 20, 2017, 10 AM at the Back of the Yards College Prep High School (2111 W 47th Street, Chicago). Thank you so much for your support last year. The fundraiser was a wonderful success raising enough money to offer supportive scholarships to the 40 students who applied from the neighborhood. The fundraiser itself featured a breakfast donated by restaurants from around the neighborhood, and we honored two former recipients. Claudio Rivera, was quoted in local newspaper The Gate, “I didn’t want to tell a story about myself today, because sometimes people try to turn that story into one that says, ‘Well, you did it because you worked harder than everyone else.’ I don’t buy that bootstrap narrative,” said Rivera, who is about to receive a Ph.D. in psychology from DePaul University. “First of all, there are plenty of other people who have done it, too. Many of them are in this room today. And of course, I have failed thousands of times. I have doubted myself many times. But there are people around me who pick me up when I fall and who see something in me that keeps them by my side. They give me opportunities even when I have doubted myself or lost belief in myself. Our story is a collective story of success. So, I encourage you to give young people chances, and not just one or two chances, but three or four thousand chances.”