HOW ONE CENTRO ROMERO ALUMNA GOT A FREE RIDE FROM BILL GATES
Eliza Luvianos, a face very familiar with those at Centro Romero since her start in 5th grade, has been named as one of the only 1,000 national recipients of the Bill and Melinda Gates Millennium Scholarship after graduating with Lincoln Park High School. As president of various clubs and over 300 hours of community service in high school, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation was impressed with that as well as her recommendation from former Centro Romero Youth Program director Doris Cabrera Andrade. As a recipient of the scholarship, she’s entitled to full tuition at the college of her choice. Eliza has enrolled in Milwaukee’s Marquette University with a major in Political Economy and Public Policy with Environmental Ethics.
From the Gates Foundation website:
The Gates Millennium Scholars Program
The Gates Millennium Scholars (GMS) Program, funded by a grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, was established in 1999 to provide outstanding African American, American Indian/Alaska Native*, Asian Pacific Islander American**, and Hispanic American students with an opportunity to complete an undergraduate college education in any discipline area of interest. Continuing Gates Millennium Scholars may request funding for a graduate degree program in one of the following discipline areas: computer science, education, engineering, library science, mathematics, public health or science.
“It was a calling, to be honest. The values that Marquette holds itself accountable and the Jesuit education that it offers played an essential role. The urban location and the accessibility to the community was also important.”
In 1999, a bold vision of what America’s future would look like began to take shape. In that view, America’s leadership would include 20,000 individuals, all people of color, who would make a significant impact on the future direction of the nation. Coming from among the most financially needy students and attending the nation’s best colleges and universities, they would represent the extraordinary promise inherent among all highly academically capable individuals, no matter what their background. Moreover, the planners envisioned that the researched experiences of the students’ matriculation and retention, the fact of these individuals’ extraordinary successes to terminal degrees, and the testimony of their voices, would spark conversation, and perhaps debate, leading to public policies and added philanthropic contributions in support of similarly able and financially challenged young people. That vision of Bill and Melinda Gates was funded by a historic grant of more than 1 billion dollars to the United Negro College Fund (UNCF)—still the largest single gift to any scholarship organization.
One of the most unique aspects of the GMS Program is the partnership and collective efforts of the four partner organizations providing services to the continuing Gates Millennium Scholars. GMS Program staff members at the American Indian Graduate Center Scholars (AIGCS), the Asian & Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund (APIASF), the Hispanic Scholarship Fund (HSF) and UNCF service students from all fifty states, the District of Columbia, American Samoa, Federated States of Micronesia, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It is truly a national effort.