Since 1980, El Centro has awarded $519,050 in scholarship money to 565 deserving high school seniors. In 2021, 9 students benefited from the Scholarship Program. We are extremely proud of our unique program, which helps recipients with their post-secondary education. Students who are considered for scholarships must have both a Grade Point Average of 3.0 or higher and involvement in El Centro Hispano. They must complete an application form and write an essay. The essay and the student’s involvement at El Centro play an important role in determining how much money the Scholarship Committee allocates to each recipient.
Due to COVID-19, we extended this program to benefit our high school students who were actively assisting our students in our programs. Since many of our students come from low-income households, El Centro Hispano decided to offer our high school volunteers small stipends to help them during these difficult times, while at the same time incentivizing them to continue assisting our program participants. El Centro awarded $3,157 to 13 high school volunteers.
In addition to the above scholarships, El Centro Hispano has also awarded scholarships to the 16 college and 19 high school students who volunteered in the Lanza My Older Sister/My Older Brother (Mi Hermana Mayor/Mi Hermano Mayor) Mentoring Tutorial Program and the Perkins Saturday Academy during the 2020- 2021 school year.
This is the 11th year that the college mentors/tutors have benefitted from these scholarships/stipends. El Centro has awarded $291,217 in scholarship/stipend money to 222 mentors/tutors.
Previous scholarship recipients have “paid back” their scholarship to El Centro Hispano in many ways – by successfully completing their post-secondary education, by contributing to El Centro Hispano when they begin work after college, and by serving on our Board of Directors (two of our current Board members are former recipients).
The Application Process
Every fall, Hispanic bilingual high school students complete an application form and write an essay. In addition, the school they attend provides a transcript of their work (over the years, most scholarship recipients were students at White Plains High School).
First each applicant’s submission is reviewed by staff to see if it has all the necessary information. If there is a question as to whether a student is bilingual, it is checked by a call – in Spanish – to the student. Then the work of the Scholarship Committee begins.
The Scholarship Committee Review
The Scholarship Committee, which is comprised of contributors, White Plains High School staff, as well as El Centro Hispano staff, reviews each student’s packet making sure the students under consideration all have a Grade Point Average of 3.0 or higher. They review the application form and read the essay written by the student. The essays and the student’s involvement in El Centro Hispano.
Congratulation to the following students who were the recipients of
El Centro Hispano's scholarship in 2021.
Grand Total $20,700
Naydelin Garcia
$2,300
Perkins/El Centro Hispano