Foundation Commitment to Avenue Scholars

This spring, we graduated 30 students from a relatively new program at East High called Avenue Scholars. The East High School Alumni Foundation was proud to bring Avenue Scholars to East High a year earlier than originally planned, thanks to additional Foundation monies that can be used to help more East graduates work toward two-year degrees, apprenticeships and immediate careers. We’re finding programs like this are as important as four-year college scholarships, so we are establishing additional fundraising initiatives outside our scholarship program.

To learn more about our commitment to Avenue Scholars, we’ll be sharing information at the 2024 Scarlet Celebration on June 8^th. You can purchase tickets HERE.

Today, we’re featuring Josefina Diaz’s story. She is a 2024 East High graduate, an EHS Alumni Foundation Scholarship Recipient and an East High School Avenue Scholars student.

Josefina’s Avenue Scholars Story

“If there was one word to describe Avenue Scholars, in my opinion that word would be memorable. The reason why I would say it is memorable is because the dedicated team of Avenue Scholars coaches and staff puts in hard work to make sure each student has experiences tied to their future careers, within Avenue Scholar supported “industries”. I have been on many field trips to different businesses around the Des Moines metro area. My first visit was to SuperStorm Restoration and I learned a lot about the company in under 3 hours and everyone walked away with a bag of popcorn! Soon summer of 2023 rolled around and the students were either required to have an internship secured or a part time job. I already had a part time job but I wanted to have something to do over the summer, so the Avenue Scholar team helped me apply to the MidAmerican Energy Internship and I got accepted! I was on the Customer Operation team and I learned so much from being there, (how to interact with a college professional, the right attire for an office job, how to interact with a customer,etc.) I am currently doing an internship for Lavelle’s Hospitality Group due to what I learned in Avenue Scholars, and am about to major in Hospitality at Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona (Lopes Up!).

“Not only did Avenue Scholars give me job opportunities, they also gave me leadership and other big lifetime opportunities. I am one of the 6 ambassadors for Avenue Scholars, and it is our job to voice the concerns and opinions of my peers to the board. I also spoke about my experience about Dress 4 Success at their Conference. It was my first time public speaking and I spoke in front of 200+ people. Another leadership role was being in charge of the student recruitment video for the oncoming class of 2026. I’ll admit, I did cry some of those nights when I was editing the video due to me stressing about grades, work and family life. But the amount of support I got before, during and after the video made me proud of the work I did. Even though I am leaving Avenue Scholars, I won’t forget all of the memories and lessons I learned from them.”

––Josefina Diaz