San Luis High School students earn scholarships for autoethnography storytelling project
Seven San Luis High School students earned $1,000 scholarships each for the Arizona Youth Autoethnography Storytelling Project
SAN LUIS, Ariz. (KYMA, KECY) - San Luis High School (SLHS) and South Mountain Community College partnered with an educational nonprofit organization, KnowledgeWorks to support the Arizona Youth Autoethnography Storytelling Project where seven SLHS students earned $1,000 scholarships during the 2021-22 school year.
The project provides a writing opportunity where students can share their personal experiences and insights during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Seven SLHS students were able to share their stories with the public and KnowledgeWorks was able to give each of those students a $1,000 scholarship.
Annette Elias, a teacher from SLHS worked with Marilyn Torres from South Mountain Community College to help these students share their stories through this writing project.
“This scholarship honestly means a lot to me because I know that school is really expensive and I just want to help my parents a little bit with scholarships so they don't have to pay for everything,” SLHS scholarship recipient, Angeline Velasquez said. “I chose to share my story because I wanted others to hear about my experiences and I know other people want to share their stories as well so I told myself this year I was going to speak up.”
Two scholarship recipients, Angeline Velasquez and Felipe Villa were able to present their experiences with the project and share their stories to the Yuma Union High School District Governing Board on August 10, 2022 with their guidance counselor, Maria Dillard.
Here is the list of students that participated in the project and their year in school for 2022-23:
- Francisco Bojorquez - 11th grade
- Maria Bustamante - 12th grade
- Hassen Cortez - 12th grade
- Ivan Estrada - 12th grade
- Melanny Ortiz - 11th grade
- Angeline Velasquez - 11th grade
- Felipe Villa - 12th grade