POE BBQ Welcomes New Students

It’s already the middle of July and POE students are getting ready to head to school – mostly in August. But, before we get there, we need to celebrate some of our 2018 POE Scholarship winners along with some wonderful POE students who graduated this year.

In early June, we held our annual barbeque to officially congratulate our new POE students.  In a lovely tree-covered backyard in Palo Alto, we feasted on roast chicken, pork and lots of fare for the vegetarians and vegans among us.  Along with the 33 new recipients of POE support (31 new high school graduates and two community college graduates moving on to 4-year schools), we had about 40 volunteer mentors and a number of special guests.  

Among the most special guests were Monica, Katherine, and Valeria who all just graduated from Berkeley and Jaime who just graduated from San Jose State. Our four graduates had some wonderful counsel for the new scholars:  some of the most important were:

• Make sure to meet the people around you and find out about the resources your school has to offer.
• Always remember, keep moving forward, even if things seem tough at the moment.
• Be clear with yourself about why you are going to college.  And always keep this goal in mind.
• Ask your mentor, if you have questions and are not sure how to answer it.

There were many other wonderful ideas shared. But, mostly, we were so impressed at how articulate and thoughtful each of these new graduates was.

Enjoy the rest of the summer!  It’s going to fly by.