When Park City seniors toss their graduation caps into the air, signifying the end of high school, some have additional reasons to celebrate the milestone achievement.
Many students in the Park City Education Foundation’s Bright Futures program are the first in their families to attend college – some are also the first in their families to graduate from high school.
Bright Futures empowers students from low-income families who might otherwise have no path to college get degrees. Students are chosen in 10th grade based on being first generation college students and the desire to do well academically and are supported all the way through college graduation.
Bright Futures Program Director Jen O’Brien says many of these students, from an early age, don’t see a path to college because of financial and environmental barriers.
“So our job is to kind of catch them early and say, you know, it is possible to pay for college as a first generation student. We can help you with those details if you stay focused, and on track and motivated academically. We're here to help you with the rest the logistics of how to pay for college.”
O'Brien says on any given year they have 20-22 students in the program, and the scholarships awarded have a wide range. This year, Edwin Ramos received the Utah Jazz full-ride scholarship while Estelle Menenes, a Presidential Merit Scholar, earned the Bleil & Zehner Scholarship for First Generation Leaders.
Bright Futures graduating senior Jessica Hinojos says her parents, who immigrated from Chihuahua, Mexico, worked hard to provide for their family, but didn’t have a way to send her to college.
“So my dad, he works. Maintenance. One of the hotels over in Main Street. And my mom cleans houses, just all around town. Yeah, they they work a lot. I usually don't see my dad until, like 1030 in the night. Just he has two jobs. Like he does like the same thing in both jobs.”
Hinojos says she works hard because her parents sacrificed so much to come to America and provide a better life for the family.
“Oh, so my mom, she was lucky enough to cross with a little like with a visa. But it did expire. So you know, she was just here living without, you know, any type of protection. And my dad, he has a little bit of a harder journey. He told me he had to cross like a river and he had to get inside of the semi truck where he almost suffocated, which is really, really scary. But I don't know, it's, it's like those sacrifices that they make that like fuel needs to keep going and to keep pursuing an education.”
Hinojos’ passions include politics and social justice issues for the Latinx community. She counts United States Representative Alexandria Ocasio- Cortez as one of her role models. Hinojos will attend the University of Utah on a scholarship.
“I got into the Honors College, and I will be majoring in psychology. And I want to get a minor in Political Science as well. And then after college, I'm not quite sure how I can like combine the two but I'm really interested in becoming maybe like a therapist or Um, I don't know if working with social issues, current issues, things like that, because I'm very passionate about that.”
For more information on the Bright Futures program, visit pcef4kids.org
