Ford Driving Dreams Grants: Investing in our Latino Youth for Educational Success
By: Francisco Ramirez, LULAC Education and Youth Spring Intern
Since its founding in 1929, LULAC has relentlessly worked to ensure educational opportunity for all students. LULAC leaders recognize and continue to prioritize educational opportunities for today’s youth, through our historic successes with school desegregation and the Head Start program and our advocacy days on Capitol Hill, we continue to lead the charge for educational attainment among Hispanics. LULAC firmly believes that it is vitally important for Hispanics to receive the tools necessary to compete in a rapidly changing academic environment. This is more important than ever as Hispanics are the fastest growing segment in the U.S. population.
Education advocates have seen a steady increase in the overall high school graduation rates since the U.S. Department of Education enacted a mandatory policy for public schools to report their dropout rates. From 2015 to 2016, graduation rates improved by a percentage point from 83.2 percent to 84.1 making it the highest graduation rate in the last decade. Despite this improvement, Hispanic students still lag behind other minorities when it comes to on-time graduation and college pursuance.
Steps have been taken to help combat this gap by implementing educational initiatives and investing in education aimed specifically for the Hispanic community to help achieve educational equity. LULAC prides itself on being one of them and through our partnership with Ford Motor Company Fund we have supported over 1,750 students to complete high school and pursue a higher education.
The Ford Driving Dreams Program is an educational initiative that awards $20,000 annually to local LULAC councils across the United States and Puerto Rico to address the Latino graduation rates in their communities. The program combines STEAM workshops, mentoring services, tutoring, civic engagement, college access and other programs that support students to not just graduate from high school but pursue higher education as well.
To date, Ford Motor Company Fund has invested over $2.7 million dollars into communities, impacted 66 LULAC councils, and reached 60 cities across 27 states.
balancing stress in a demanding academic environment
LULAC has worked hand in hand with the Ford Motor Company Fund for over 20 years as educational champions for Hispanics. 2018 marks the 8th year of the Ford Driving Dreams Grants program, 8 new sites and 2 veteran sites will be awarded at our upcoming LULAC National Convention that will be held in Phoenix, AZ from July 17–21st, 2018. This important milestone spotlights communities that LULAC councils can support in terms of facilitating greater opportunities and maintaining sustainable funding for youth through community-based programs and engagement.
Want to begin a program in your community? Join us at the LULAC National Convention in Phoenix for the “Ford Driving Dreams Grants Program, Best Practices Workshop”, LULAC and Ford Motor Company Fund representatives will be on hand to share information about the RPF process, eligibility, sustainability of programs, and best practices. Make sure you visit www.LULAC.org/ford to find out about this year’s newly granted sites.
