Scholarships Cap Mentoring Program for Students

Kelly Walker faced so many demands in his single-parent home in Inglewood as he grew up that he never dreamed he would be the first person in his family to go to college. Now, he’s not only headed to college, he has also won a scholarship.

Walker, 18, was one of 300 students who received scholarships Saturday at the ninth annual Fulfillment Fund Scholars Day luncheon. The Fulfillment Fund, a nonprofit organization, pairs disadvantaged youths with mentors from the professional community and provides them with scholarships when they finish high school.

Walker will receive $1,000 a year to help pay his tuition at Cal State Northridge, where he plans to major in business administration. He credited the organization with hooking him up with a mentor, consultant David Jensen, who he said has become a friend.

“Placing me with Dave showed me that there is a lot more to life,” said the teen-ager who grew up in a neighborhood plagued by gang violence. “It helped me to realize that you can be successful.”

“I grew up with my mother and I really didn’t have a father,” said Walker, a senior at Inglewood High School. “I stayed in the house a lot because I had to take care of my little brother and sister while my mother worked.”

Mayor Richard Riordan joined Quincy Jones, Jackson Browne, Sidney Poitier and others in hailing the program’s efforts to help students who might not otherwise be able to go to college.

“We owe every child who comes into this world the tools to deal with this complex technological society we live in and that means mainly education,” Riordan said.

Rudy Lacayo, who graduated from UC Berkeley last year after receiving scholarship money and mentor help from the organization, emphasized the difference the assistance has made in his life. As he grew up in a poor family and watched his friends drift into gangs, his mentor provided the guidance he needed to make it to college, Lacayo said.

“It’s not only the money you get, it’s also the time mentors spend with you that makes the program work,” Lacayo said.