Each year Enterprise nominates youth to receive the Posse Scholarship, and this summer six semi-finalists were selected! We hope all six of these bright young minds are selected for the third and final round and receive the scholarship.
The Posse Scholarship offers full four-year tuition scholarships to universities across the country. The Bay Area Posse program sends ten youth to four schools: Boston University, St. Olaf College, University of Puget Sound, and Lehigh University. Posse Scholars are notable for their leadership, academic commitment, teamwork, and ambition.
Read below about our six semi-finalists and the change they hope to inspire.
Emily Aguirre, a senior at Mission High School, is motivated to make a difference for underserved communities, gender equality, and the environment. Her worldly experiences volunteering and advocating for minorities have opened many doors for her. Interning with organizations that share the same hunger for change, like Foodwise (formerly CUESA) and the Reimagine Internship through SFUSD, helped her gain a head start in her career. She discovered a passion for sustainable agriculture and entrepreneurship. Emily plans on going to a four-year university to study international agriculture and business administration with the goal of opening an agave-manufacturing business in El Salvador. Her ultimate objective is to open doors for women in underserved communities, to help them gain access to education, and inspire them to get jobs in careers that are usually male-dominated.
Grace Kuang hopes to use her passion for baking to continue to support nonprofits. She is a senior at Lowell High School who enjoys baking, trying new things, and giving back to her community. She has interned at Old Navy Headquarters and is an Executive Director at Bakes & Smiles where they bake and donate profits to non-profit organizations serving youth. She plans to attend a four-year university and major in business administration.
Liberty La is ready to make a positive impact on her community by helping people and giving back. She is a senior at Raoul Wallenberg High School who enjoys penpalling, reading, going on walks, and getting to know other people. Because of her various interests, she has interned at the Fort Mason National Park through Green Careers, as well as Helix, a summer medical program located at UC Berkeley and Kaiser Permanente. She plans to attend a four-year university and major in public administration so that she can give back to her community. She is committed to working with the people and for the people.
Nathaly Perez wants to make combating climate change her full-time job. She is a senior at Mission High School who enjoys dancing, planning events, and organizing social justice talks in her community at Mission. She has interned with Studio Heimat gaining knowledge about interior design industry project phases and entrepreneurship. She plans to attend a four-year college to graduate in civil engineering and wants to help create more green buildings to combat climate change.
Natalia Noelani Quesada Marshall aims to fulfill her childhood dream of being an engineer and use it to create inventions that make the world better. She is a senior at Mission High School. She is a native San Franciscan, part Peruvian, Hawaiian, and Portuguese. Natalia’s first language was Spanish and she is bilingual and bi-literate. She loves playing sports and participates on the volleyball, cross country, soccer, and track teams at her school. She is a curious person by nature and enjoys collecting buttons and animal erasers, eating dark chocolate, drinking boba tea, and writing poetry. Natalia has wanted to be an engineer ever since she was little when she liked to build things like houses and Ferris wheels with whatever she could get her hands on.
She is currently exploring what it takes to be a civil or structural engineer who builds bridges. Whatever the career, she wants to be working at the forefront of technological advancements and be a creative problem-solving force in the world. Natalia also plans to double major in Spanish and study abroad in a Spanish-speaking country, maybe Peru.
Yanely Tamayo hopes to translate her personal interests into apps and websites she builds. She is a senior at Richmond High School who enjoys listening to music, journaling, and coding websites. She interned at Code Nation and Mission Bit during the summer and has learned HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. She plans to attend a four-year university and major in Computer Science so that she can create her own apps and websites in relation to her personal interests.
By Meghan Smith-Chang, Senior Program Director