MENTORING: A LIFELONG GIFT!

2 PARAGRAPHS 4 LIBERTY: #359

I want to take this opportunity to pass along to our 2 Paragraphs Family one of the good things that is happening in our community. It is called the Nicholas Academic Center, and it was founded in 2008 as a partnership between Dr. Henry T. Nicholas, III (one of the two founders of Broadcom, Inc.) and the late Judge Jack K. Mandel of our Orange County Superior Court. There are now three such centers in Santa Ana, California, and they specialize in mentoring and tutoring mainly low-income Hispanic high school students. And not only is it a blessing to behold, it is a lifelong gift to us all!

Why is that? Because the centers are able both to show not only that these high school students that they too have great opportunities in life, they show them how to achieve them. The present Director of the centers is Ms. Rosa Diaz, and she is a graduate of the NAC and, through the NAC program, received a full-ride scholarship to Allegheny University. Thereafter she earned a graduate degree from USC and could have gone on to make a lot of money as a professional, but instead wanted to give back to her community. As she phrased it, “There was nothing special about me. I wasn’t going anywhere until I became one of the ‘Judge’s kids,’ and realized that I too could go to a university, get an education and be successful. And that is what the NAC is continuing to demonstrate to other students who are just like I was.” As of now 1,286 scholars have graduated from the NAC programs and a full 100 percent of those graduates have gone on to secondary education – and 80 percent of those have been enrolled in four-year universities! Of course, it is not inexpensive to run these programs. Dr. Nicholas himself has spent about $5.2 million in each of the last two years, so he deserves a great deal of credit and appreciation. But now we are trying to build upon our success by looking nationwide for other community-minded billionaires that have those kinds of resources and showing them how they could duplicate these centers in their communities as well, because what we have really works. So if you are aware of any such people or institutions, please let us know.

Cooking tip for the week: If you stir coconut oil into your kale, it is easier to scrape it into the trash . . . .