Exactly three miles due north from Cartagena Plaza, there is a public high school that was designed to house 2,800 students for the affluent Coral Gables community. Today, the school has over 3,200 students, and with 76 percent of the students on free or reduced lunch, the students aren’t exactly affluent.
Actually, a recent top-performing student who is attending FIU on a full scholarship had been homeless for all four years of high school. Despite those challenges, she still managed to graduate with honors, and although the student had numerous options to attend several prestigious universities, the family could not afford out-of-state tuition and housing.
“I’ve driven by the school countless times, but only recently did I realize the opportunity to make a positive impact on the lives of so many local families,” explained Matthew Martinez, Islands of Cocoplum president and chair of the Philanthropy Committee.
“With a minority rate of over 90 percent, a largely underprivileged student population, and overpopulated classrooms, Coral Gables High School faces significant challenges. Even with those challenges, however, over 94 percent of seniors attend university and the IB Program is one of the top performing programs in the county.”
The Islands of Cocoplum Philanthropy Committee has decided to partner with Coral Gables High School in 2019 to help local, high-performing, underprivileged students attend university and acquire internship and vocational opportunities with business owners throughout our own community.
“We are offering a unique opportunity to help rising seniors pay their college tuition through scholarships as well as gain valuable work experience with summer internships, thus providing scholarship recipients with a direct path to future employment opportunities upon graduation from college,” Martinez explained.
Coral Gables High School principal Adolfo Costa is excited to partner with Islands of Cocoplum for the new initiative.
“We believe that opportunities for students to interact with business owners are enormously beneficial. Currently there are very few vehicles that can facilitate these relationships and our partnership with Islands of Cocoplum would have a tremendous impact in the lives of our students,” Costa said.
“Our goal is to target this initiative toward rising seniors who are economically disadvantaged, yet show academic promise. We want donors to be actively engaged with the process of selecting scholarship recipients and ultimately know the students who have had successful internships with business owners,” Martinez said. “The hope is to facilitate the process of giving back to our community in a meaningful way.”
The financial goal for 2019 is $100,000 in scholarship funds and the deadline for donations is Mar. 15. The first part of the initiative will be to establish a committee composed of Islands of Cocoplum Board members and donors. That committee will review the scholarships applications and select the scholarship recipients for the year.
The next step will be to introduce the scholarship recipients to residents in the community. This will take place through an acceptance ceremony at the IOC Clubhouse.
“We are designing the program for two kinds of donors — those who would like to take an active role in the lives of the students as well as those who would like to take a more passive role,” Martizez said. “We understand our residents lead busy lives, so we have opportunities in place for residents who would like to donate and stay informed about the progress of the students. We will also have opportunities for donors who would like to take a more active role in mentoring students and offering internships or vocational opportunities.”
Any residents who want to take part in this initiative should contact Matthew Martinez at matt@beaconhillpg.com for more information.
