Please Contribute!!

Hello friends,

Last year, towards the end of my second year of Teach for America, I sought out to create a scholarship fund for my graduating seniors, hoping that all of you would contribute to funding a part of my students' college educations. The initial goal was to raise $1,000, but with your generosity and support, we ended up tripling that goal and raising a total of $3,000 for the 1st annual BOOM (Building of Outstanding Minds) scholarship fund, good enough for six individual scholarships given to graduating seniors of Huntington Park College Ready Academy High School ("HPCRAHS"). All six of these students have now finished, or are in the midst of finishing their first year of college. Those of you who read over the scholarship applications know the hardships that these students had to overcome in order to make it to the colleges they are now attending. However, without your generosity, many of these students would have had an even harder time making college an option for them.

I wanted to take this opportunity to not only thank you all again for your moral and monetary support last year, but to ask you again for your support this year, in hopes of making the BOOM scholarship fund an annual event. Many of the students graduating this year are students I had taught only a year ago, and although I am no longer in the classroom with them, I have spent time mentoring and communicating with them, advising them on the college applications process and helping to prepare them on what to expect during their first year in college. These students have been awarded with college acceptances ranging from Harvard, Berkeley, UCLA, Irvine, Bucknell, University of Miami, and many other great institutions after four years of hard work in high school. The students I taught grew up and went to school in low-income, minority communities. All of them have faced and overcome challenges that would have forced many students to drop out. However, all of these students have persisted and many will be the first high school graduates in their families. I can't express how proud I am of these students, especially having been part of their lives during their high school careers. One of my former students, Joshua, is featured in this article [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lili-barsha/meet-the-a-list_b_593532.html]

Any amount that you can contribute will be helpful, and $25 dollars is a good amount to contribute if you need a guiding number. ;) However, don't feel pressured to donate a certain amount -- ANY AMOUNT is helpful, and would be greatly appreciated by these students (and all donations are tax deductible). I hope to start collecting applications from the graduating class at HPCRAHS starting next week, so if you are willing to contribute, please do so as soon as possible! I know that many of you were inspired by the real life stories of my students from last year's class, and I know you will be equally impressed at this year's class. Hope you are all doing well, and please drop me a message at any time updating me on what's going on in your life! Thank you so much for reading this and hope to hear from y'all soon.

Paypal Direct Link: CLICK TO DONATE!
Mailing Address: Winston Gu, 1659 Briarcliff Rd, Apt 1325-A, Atlanta, GA 30306

Best,
Winston

PS: I am have some follow up questions/ responses of two of my students who are just finishing up/ have finished their first year of college! Feel free to send me a message with your e-mail address and I can shoot that over! :)