Hispanic Youth Leadership Summit in Pocatello biggest yet
POCATELLO, Idaho (KIFI) - Hundreds of students with hispanic heritage in the region gathered at Idaho State University Wednesday. They were there for the Hispanic Youth Leadership Summit, which was in its second year being hosted at the university.
Margie Gonzalez, the executive director for the Idaho Commission of Hispanic affairs, says everyone who organized the event is more than excited about how this years event turned out.
"We've really had a lot of success the first year and now is hosting here the second year. We've increased our numbers by almost 50%. We went from 400 students to 650 students," Gonzalez said.
She says the summit is really there to try and help these students to reach new heights and further their education.
"What's really amazing is that we have every higher ed institution almost represented here today. They've been doing a college fair. And at the end of the day, these colleges and these institutions will be awarded scholarships," she said.
Kevin Hernandez was the recipient of one of the scholarships handed out in the afternoon and says the only from it will help him follow his dream of becoming an architect.
"I'm going to take them both to the fact that I worked so hard to get scholarships that I got today. So I'm not going to be complacent. I'm just going to continue to work hard to get," Hernandez said.
Another recipient, Dominic Winters, says the event was more than just receiving scholarships.
"(We were) put in like our different teams where we are able to like meet all these other people. And we were able to go through like all these fun activities that we did like throughout the day. And it was just, I don't know, it was nice to meet new people."
Hernandez and Winters say they both enjoyed the event and would recommend it to their fellow students.
College of Eastern Idaho's multicultural coordinator Effie Hernandez says they hope to continue to grow the event.
"Hopefully all the students got great information and they left feeling just excited to start their journey about going to college or just making connections and networking with so many different individuals today. So I'm really hoping that this event continues on. Like I said, this is the second year that we've hosted it in Pocatello, so we're hoping to expand it even more next year."
