BY JOE ARCE AND COREY CRABLE
In-depth report
This year, the Hispanic Development Fund (HDF) celebrates 40 years of changing the lives of Latino students, one dollar at a time.
At a recent banquet for the organization, the organization’s leaders reflected on the HDF’s massive growth and success, while past scholarship recipients spoke of the scholarships offered by the HDF as the key that unlocked a door to post-secondary education – and a lifetime success.
The HDF Scholarship Program has awarded millions of dollars to high school students over the years – and when paired with Cambio Para Cambio, (Change for Change) which allows colleges to match donations to scholarships, has remained a powerful tool for local Hispanic students who might otherwise not even consider college.
In the early 1980s, Tony Salazar was executive director of the Neighborhood Alliance initiative. “He said that his board wanted to create and implement a program where foundation money is given to minority communities, both the Black community and Latino community. And their thought is, ‘Give them money and let them determine how they want to spend it and use it.’ And they would give their money to the community foundation. We would set up a board to determine how that money is spent,” Salazar recalled. “And they called me up and said, ‘Hey, can you put this into a program? Can you write it up? Create a board, create operating procedures. Let us look at it, and then if we like, we’ll fund it, and then you can go forward and raise additional capital with other foundations.’”
That experiment – a huge success to the Hallmark Co. -- became the Hispanic Development Fund. It was 1984.
“Our social service agencies were overwhelmed. … It was the time when our school system was failing our kids, and they were closing schools. They closed schools on the Westside. Our education system was failing us,” Salazar said. “We had a big high school dropout rate and (high school students) weren’t going to college. One of the first things we did was to create a scholarship fund.”
The humble program started out with 10 student scholarship applicants each receiving $100.
But Salazar still needed someone to manage the scholarships. Thankfully, he found Ramon Murguia, who wanted to become more involved in the Hispanic community in Kansas City. Murguia agreed to take the reins of the HDF.
“It’s a real effort of the heart. I’ve enjoyed being able to raise more money, provide more resources for our community, for young people who want to go to college,” said Murguia, who replaced Salazar in 1990. “It’s been something to which I’ve dedicated a lot of time and effort, volunteering a lot of hours to try and make sure that we continue to expand our services that are needed in this Latino community here in Kansas City.”
Salazar has been impressed with how the organization has grown under Murguia’s leadership.
“I’ve always felt he’s been a trusted person, someone who could come behind me and take over some of these leadership positions that I was involved in,” he said.
Just as inspiring, Salazar said, is how the Hispanic community has risen up to help students live their dream of going to college.
“This is money, our money. It’s community money,” Salazar said. “It belongs to us. And we’ve used it well. We’ve leveraged it well.”
He said he is confident that after those students have graduated from college, they’ll find well-paying jobs and eventually be able to give back to the community.
“We had a lot of people with small wallets, you know, had a little bit of money in their pocket. But as we create more professionals, more college graduates, and they become more wealthy, then we could start seeing some of that money come back,” Salazar said. “So it’s churning, it’s evolving and it’s creating a higher-income class of people that we can turn and take more money and do more things in our community. That’s the most gratifying part.”
In his speech at the banquet, Murguia shared a by-the-numbers look at HDF through the years. The HDF has awarded more than $3 million in grants to 50 Latino-led organizations. In 40 years, it has awarded more than $10 million in scholarships to over 5,450 Latino students from the greater Kansas City metropolitan area. This year, the HDF awarded $1.2 million to 509 scholarship recipients, 84% of whom were first-generation college students.
“And in 2019, we started a family college prep program to help high school students and their families prepare for their college experience,” he added. “Last year, we helped 1,200 students and their families attend college campus visits and counseled hundreds of students and their families on FAFSA and workshops about college.”
John Kearney, the HDF’s executive director, shared more information about Cambio Para Cambio.
“We had 47 participating teams this year, 19 student-led from our high schools and colleges, and they’ve helped us, our community has helped us expand our fundraising to impact more students,” Kearney said. “We want to improve our community. We want to improve our world and make it a little bit better place than what it was when we entered it.”
Those whose careers and lives have been touched by HDF’s Scholarship Program attended the banquet as well, sharing their success stories with the audience.
“As far as paying for a college education, that pretty much seemed impossible to many students, but not anymore,” said Dr. Emily Saatcioglu, academic dean at Bishop Ward High School. “I’m happy to report that things are different now. Our students have a plan, they have an itinerary to follow, a list of things to do, applications to complete, scholarships to win, campuses to visit, forms to submit, decisions to make.”
Saatcioglu shared her own numbers about Bishop Ward’s success with HDF. Last year, she said, seniors graduated with over $1 .3 million in scholarships, 46% went on to four -year institutions, 30% went on to two-year institutions, 13% went to trade schools, and roughly 2% joined the workforce.
The event’s master of ceremonies, Sandra Olivas, shared her story about the life-changing moments in her educational career, which started with a bit of personal help from immigration attorney Carlos Murguia’s sister Janet Murguia, also an attorney.
“Janet worked with Congressman Jim Slattery, she did her research, and personally went with me to KU. She argued that because I was graduating from a Kansas school and met all the academic requirements, KU should allow me to pay in-state tuition,” said Olivas, who came to the U.S. when she was only six months old. “And they finally agreed. That moment was a turning point, filling me with hope that college might be possible.”
The HDF stepped in to help with the rest.
“I applied for the HDF scholarship, and when I received it, I felt like my community was saying, ‘We believe in you,’” said Olivas, who graduated from KU with a degree in journalism and went on to become a news reporter. “That support was my fuel. I was determined not to let down everyone who believed in me, and I worked hard.”
Robert Sagastume, a scholarship recipient who now works as the HDF’s Community Impact Officer, said receiving his own HDF scholarship gave him “a sense of belonging and hope.”
“It reignited my belief in myself and gave me the strength to keep pushing forward,” said Sagastume, who also is a member of the Kansas City, Mo, Public School’s Board of Education. “That scholarship became a catalyst that changed the course of my life.”
The HDF, he said, allowed him to dare to dream, and to make those dreams come true.
“I am here today because of the access, hope, and opportunity that scholarships like those offered by the Hispanic Development Fund create,” Sagastume said. “I am living the life I once thought was impossible.”
