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United Way Honors 5 Who Give to Others

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Times Staff Writer

It was in the 1950s when Santa Ana banker Manuel Esqueda decided to search for academic sprouts.

Invest in young Latino scholars, he told himself, and they will mature into tomorrow’s community leaders.

“We wanted them to know that we believed in them so that they could believe in themselves,” said Esqueda, 82.

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Education was key to the next generation’s success, said Esqueda, who founded Santa Ana’s Gemini Club with 15 other Latino businessmen in the late ‘50s. The club raised money for college scholarships awarded to promising young students.

When the club disbanded, Esqueda raised funds on his own, then got a $10,000 grant from Gene Autry in 1984 and used it to establish Serafines of Orange County, a nonprofit group with a similar mission.

In all, Esqueda has given out about $550,000 in college scholarships to nearly 1,200 students. Most are for $500.

The retired Bank of America executive has lived a modest life in a small, three-bedroom home he shared with his wife, Dolores, for nearly five decades until she died last year.

“I didn’t pay for all those scholarships. I had help,” Esqueda said. “But from time to time, I did buy the carne [meat] and beer for our fundraising barbecues.”

On Friday, Esqueda was given a lifetime achievement award by the Orange County United Way.

Esqueda was among five people to receive awards as Hispanic Influentials.

The others were Frank Garcia, an Anaheim restaurateur who helps feed thousands each Thanksgiving; Kenneth D. Yglesias, chancellor of the Coast Community College District; Elena Rojas, chief executive of Protrans Inc.; and Max Madrid, who directs an anti-gang program.

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Because of Esqueda’s philanthropy and support for education, an elementary school in Santa Ana is being named in his honor. Manuel Esqueda Elementary School is scheduled to open in the fall.

One of Esqueda’s proteges, Manuel N. Gomez, recalled the interview process with the Gemini Club’s scholarship committee when he was a teenager at Santiago High School in Garden Grove in 1965.

“I remember walking up this dark flight of stairs and I was trembling. I was so nervous because I had to face this scholarship committee,” Gomez said.

The interview was tough. “It was no gimme,” said Gomez, 57, now vice chancellor for student affairs at UC Irvine.

“They wanted to know, if we won, whether we would return and give back to the community. I said, ‘Yes,’ ” said Gomez, who got $250.

Esqueda, Gomez said, knew then that one way of ensuring social justice and advancement for the Latino community was to provide support to successful young students going to college.

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“I can’t express the [gratitude] having been a recipient,” Gomez said.

Another businessman who has given to others is Garcia.

It’s hard to talk about the 60-year-old owner of Casa Garcia Restaurant in Anaheim without mentioning Thanksgiving and numbers: Last year, 15,000 people ate 912 turkeys, 5,000 pounds of potatoes and 260 gallons of gravy that he provided.

For 17 years, the homeless, the aged and the lonely have found their way to Garcia’s table at Thanksgiving, said his son, Frank Garcia Jr.

As a youth, Garcia’s son didn’t know why his father devoted so much time to feeding the hungry until he saw people in wheelchairs and people coming from throughout Southern California on Thanksgiving to help or be helped.

“My father has always told us it’s important to help others,” said the younger Garcia.

Rojas has headed her transcription and translation firm for six years. She also started a nonprofit organization, Federacion Venezolana de Sofbol, that provides grants to disadvantaged athletes in Latin America wishing to study in the United States.

To date, 30 young women have received scholarships, said Rojas’ daughter, Ruby Rojas, 23, a former softball player at the University of Virginia, who nominated her mother for the United Way business award.

Rojas, 51, a Mexican American married to a Venezuelan, began the nonprofit group after seeing talented young women forgo promising athletic careers because of a lack of support in their native countries.

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She saw the need while following the progress of her daughter, who was born in Venezuela and was selected for that country’s national softball team.

“I wanted to give these girls from another country the opportunity of an education here in the States and to continue playing the sport that they love,” Rojas said.

Yglesias’ career in education spans more than 35 years.

The son of factory workers was first a teacher, coach, and community college instructor before becoming an administrator.

Yglesias, 59, is head of a community college district serving more than 60,000 students.

He was president of Orange Coast College for nine years, and became chancellor last July.

For more than 15 years, Madrid has confronted the growth of youth gangs in Orange County.

As director of gang prevention programs for Community Service Programs Inc., Madrid, 58, has helped with mediation and counseling for dozens of families.

He has recruited volunteers to serve as tutors, and also arranged for college students to provide academic tutoring for at-risk youth.

Most of his work is dealing with tragedies, he said. But he has found solace in developing gang prevention and youth development programs for troubled communities.

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