Help With Cornell Tuition For Fall Semester
Hi. I'm a single mother to an amazing and beautiful intelligent Native son who comes from the Mexican Clan and Oak Clan of the Santo Domingo Tribe of New Mexico. During the course of motherhood I have not received financial help and it's just been the two of us getting by with little means. The burden of cost of living and giving my son equal education opportunities have been stressful. I have been fortunate though to have gotten some help from Native American community centers in my area and that has made the biggest impact.
My son, Roman Chavez is a humble and kind person and he is going to do amazing things in his life. He works incredibly hard and has overcome obstacles such as enduring racial and systematic institution inequity. Being the only Native kid in his higher academic classes has fueled his passion to help fight racism in school. In 2016 he started a volunteer-led program teaching Native and POC students how to solve a Rubik's cube. The Rubik's cube is used as a tool to help teach kids mathematics. Roman has taught and mentored over 1,000 children. A few of the places he has contributed his resources has been at the American Indian Child Resource Center in Oakland, California; American Indian Services Prefreshman Engineering Program at the University of Utah, Blanding Campus (where he taught over 90 high school youth and was the youngest instructor; and consecutive math classes at the United Auburn Indian Community School in California; The Islamic Center of Alameda, California; The Boys and Girls Clubs of West Oakland; Public Library's throughout the United States.
Roman is a pure mathematics major at Cornell University and hopes to continue to give back to our Native youth. Roman's Native name is Waka'tewa which means "The Truth" or the "The Light" in the Keres language and hopes to live up to his name by helping the next generation of Native youth excel in STEM.
As a single mother, I realize I can't do it all by myself and I'm asking for your help in supporting my son's education journey and help him achieve his goals and passion in education.
Roman has applied to over 30 scholarships including - The Gates, AISES - STEM scholarships, CNAY, and a few others. Of the 30+ he has only received one scholarship from the Native American Health Center of Oakland bringing his semester total down by $2,000. For the semester I'm hoping we can get it paid for which would help our burden and would allow my son to confidently focus on his goals.
Minus the $2,000 (from the Native American Health Center scholarship) the fall semester tuition is $5,519.50.
We would be so grateful for whatever amount you can contribute.
Thank you. <3
You can read more about Roman here:
https://www.cnay.org/roman-chavez-turns-rubiks-cubes-into-teaching-tools-for-youth-of-color/
Watch Roman's high school speech here — time 1:11:11
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J82FKJrV-PQ&list=WL&index=25&t=4673s
