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Dear Dr. Langer,
Hello, I hope this letter finds you and your family well. My name is Giana Zelaya and well, I am one of the second batches of scholarship recipients of the year 1999. I can't help but to feel a bit estranged from time and its illusive span when I say 1999. Has it been a decade since I stood in the small Lennox library before you, Meg Sanchez, and my parents? I believe it has been, I was but eleven, it has now been ten years since I received the scholarship award.
My little sister received the scholarship this year and I was so proud, unfortunately, I was unable to make the ceremony but I wanted to tell you how much this scholarship has changed my life. I don't think people quite understand that the financial support is only a fraction of what actually is the key factor in ensuring the success of the students in the Lennox Partnership Scholarship program. I was one of the lucky students who were able to obtain a permit to attend school outside of the Lennox region and venture into El Segundo, a city only five miles away from Lennox Middle School, but a city that I had neither seen nor ever imagined attending school there.
The Lennox partnership Program gave me this opportunity to perceive a world beyond the scope of my limited horizon. El Segundo is an affluent city, with minimal crime rate, and a pristine academic reputation. For the first time in my life I could walk around a neighborhood past six o clock at night, without worrying about getting mugged or harassed. Homelessness seemed to be extinct, there was nobody selling drugs at the comer liquor store, no gangs, no prostitutes walking along street traffic lights, none of the familiar scenes pertinent to my home. Here in El Segundo, University was a natural process, almost like a coming of age that all the students would naturally participate in. What a phenomenal concept I thought, when just five minutes away there was a little school under a freeway in which most of the kids were hoping to at least make it through high school.
This is the most moving facet of the Lennox Partnership program that I believe many people overlook. It's really not the money, although it is undeniable that the money helped expose me to brilliant venues of art and made life easier when purchasing books, and paying for my endeavors throughout high school such as field trips, band, and sports. However, the most inspiring aspect is its ability to instill in its recipients that sense of hope and optimism, that not all that touches the crest of the sky is impossible to reach.
I used to wonder what drove you, Dr. Langer, a successful man to dedicate so much of your own money and time to a program of which in my eyes you were completely unconnected to. I would think to myself did he understand the social and cultural barriers that cripple the kids in Lennox? Things such as the single mother, such as my own, struggling with a minimum wage job to put food on the table and simultaneously trying to raise her kids. What about the prevalence of drugs in the community, the child abuse found common place in many households, gang violence, broken homes, and the vicious cycle of teen pregnancy? How could he possibly understand the many migrant families that had made Lennox, a little crack on a tattered sidewalk, a metropolis for those gripping tight to the notion of what the American dream promised; a prosperous future.
I graduated from university this past June and it is now that I am older and I reflect on these notions that I have a profound understanding of why you have dedicated so much to this cause. I understand that there is a common bridge that unites all of us regardless of race, gender and cultural background, and that is that we are human and we feel and seek compassion. People must bridge the gaps of their differences by finding that universal responsibility that is ubiquitous of progress, peace, and equal opportunity for all. More than this is the fact that I now find myself desirous of seeking the change that I want in my community, and I know now that this same passion is what compelled you to help change Lennox.
The Lennox program may seem tiny in retrospect to the change many would want to see in the education system in poverty stricken neighborhoods and cities such as Inglewood and Lennox, but in reality the program is a diamond in the rough. It is the commencement of a revolutionary movement of how ones notion of social responsibility can change and impact the lives of so many. You have made the Lennox partnership scholarship program the embodiment of a fountain of hope.
You have to know that the program has not only changed my life but my family's. I am the first generation to ever go to college, my little brother is enrolled in a four year university now, and my little sister is well on her way to academic success. Thank you for everything I hope that I get the pleasure of speaking to you perhaps on a one on one basis. Moreover, I would like to express my sincere gratitude and apologize for my lack of connection to the program in recent years.
With much love, affection, and respect,
Yours truly,
Giana Zelaya
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