Latino Group Sets Sights on $2.5 Million

Nadia Maria Davis was in her second year of law school when disaster struck. Her father died, her family needed help, and she thought she would have to drop out of school.

Davis had already made her announcement to the dean when aid came in the form of a scholarship from the Orange County Hispanic Education Endowment Fund.

“It enabled me to dry my tears, hold my head up and go back to school,” said Davis, 29, who five years later is an attorney and member of the Santa Ana Unified School District Board of Education.

She was one of several past recipients of HEEF scholarships on hand at a gathering Wednesday in Costa Mesa to tell their stories as the organization geared up for its annual fund-raising dinner in November and announced a new five-year financial goal.

“When we got to a million dollars in 1998,” said Gaddi Vasquez, a former Orange County supervisor and founding member of HEEF, “we said that we couldn’t stop there.”

Indeed, the foundation’s endowment is now at slightly more than $1.5 million and growing. The new goal, organizers said Wednesday, is to raise it to $2.5 million by 2005.

“When we set up the fund,” Vasquez said, “we took ownership of a critical issue in the community: education. We know and recognize that there is a great need to educate our Latino youth. Tonight is about keeping the fire burning.”

More than 200 Latino elementary, high school and college students have received scholarships since the fund’s inception in 1993.

For Davis, the help five years ago came just in time.

“I can’t thank HEEF enough,” she said Wednesday. “It was a critical point of my life when I may have been forced to give up my dream. Your donations are more than just assistance. They are a strong message to youth to achieve that education and apply it.”