Honors Students in Action

Honors students head a non-profit for Mexican children

Presidential Quartet: (L to R) Iván González '09 (Communication), Laura Notarangelo '09 (Fashion and Retail Merchandising), Kevin Lawson '08 (History with Secondary Education) and Chelsea Comeau '08 (English with Secondary Education) are all heading Niños de Veracruz, (Children of Veracruz, Mexico) this year.

How would you feel if you raked leaves for 8 hours solid?  Wealthy (and charitable)! We raised $3000 to support education for Mexican children in one day!  See photos of Lawn and Leaf Day.

Honors students helped found the charity Niños de Veracruz (Children of Veracruz), and they have always been at its forefront as presidents, officers, and participants.

This year's Presidents are running multiple fundraisers, the annual Newton Charity Lawn and Leaf Day, a can and bottle recycling drive, a car wash, a campus-wide campaign to use the search engine www.goodsearch.com instead of Google because Goodsearch donates to Niños de Veracruz with each search! They are busy, and their efforts are showing results.

About our Non-Profit Organization: 

Niños de Veracruz was founded in 2003 by students at Lasell College who had visited poor schools in Mexico to learn about the U.S., Mexico & poverty.  Upon their return, they decided to found a 501 (c) 3 organization capable of giving scholarships to the children they met.
  
Sixth grade children of farm workers in Coatepec, Mexico often drop out at the end of the school year to work alongside their parents in the sugar cane fields.  At that age, costs for shoes, school uniforms, and books increase, and parents, often earning little more than $1.00 a day, are faced with the impossible choice between food, education, and the child’s earning potential. 

Niños de Veracruz offers very small scholarships, $200 per child for the best students in each sixth grade class of the Jorge Cerdán school, serving the historic ejido of Campo Viejo.  This is enough to move the child into seventh grade and to make their parents deeply grateful and very proud.  We have eighteen scholars this year, and we’ve helped over forty children so far. 

Niños de Veracruz has also begun a partnership with a boy’s home in the city of Orizaba, a city that like Coatepec is in the Mexican state of Veracruz.  There we are establishing a small library of books, CDs and educational DVDs for the boys instruction and enjoyment.   

Dr. Stephanie Athey Director, Honors Program Director, Mexico Shoulder to Shoulder Associate Professor of English Read our FACULTY BLOG