2020-2021 Wildflower Fund Recipients

In 2020-21, we distributed $50,000 from the Wildflower Fund (Wildflower Run registrations, corporate sponsorships, and individual donations) in support of education and equity for women and girls. Due to the Covid-19 virus, some of our programming (such as Tech Trek and the National Conference for Women College Leaders (NCCWSL) were turned into virtual programs. The reduced expense associated with these virtual  events enabled us to redirect $5,000 of or funds to the Student Emergency Fund at Gavilan College. Funds raised were directed to the following:

Provide scholarships to high school girls graduating from Morgan Hill Unified School District (MHUSD) schools.

Kelsey Beard Ann Sobrato High School Northern Arizona University Psychology
Taylor Conely Ann Sobrato High School CSU Fullerton Psychology
Aliyah Habib Live Oak High School UC Santa Barbara Political Science
Janelle Laflin** **Snively Leadership Scholarship Live Oak High School USC Health & Human Sciences
Madison Langley Live Oak High School San Diego Mesa College Business
Cecelia Rojas Live Oak High School UC Davis Psychology
Jenni Romero Ann Sobrato High School
Grace Sullivan Ann Sobrato High School UC Davis Aerospace Engineering
Daisy Villarreal Ann Sobrato High School Gavilan College Sociology

NEWLY EXPANDED: Provide “Re-Entry Scholarships” to local women reentering college after a gap in their education. We now also offer these redefined “Re-Entry/Deferred Entry Scholarships” to women who have taken a break after high school before entering college and to women completing their GED and entering college.

Re-Entry and Healthcare scholarship recipients at AAUW fall membership lunch with scholarship committee chairs

Adriana Arroyo – first MH Community Adult School recipient!

Adriana Arroyo Gavilan College Nursing
Virginia Hendersen San Jose State Business Administration
Maura E. Hernandez-Rodriguez Northwest University Psychology

Provide “Lauren Jenkins Healthcare Profession Scholarships” to college students from the Morgan Hill area who are pursuing a degree in a healthcare profession.

Sophia Carrillo Milwaukee School of Engineering/Nursing Nursing
Breanna Casas San Jose State Nursing
Tina Tran San Jose State Nursing

NEW: Provide a “Fritts Family STEM Scholarship” to college women from Morgan Hill or Gilroy who are already in college and planning to graduate from a 4-year school with a STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) degree.

This is an endowed scholarship providing a $1000 scholarship  each year for 10 years.

Yessenia Reed Howard University Biology / pre-med

Provide supplemental Keeping In Touch (KIT) grants to previous scholarship recipients to support them as they continue in their field of study.

Name College Major or Field of Study
Lindsay Baker San Jose State Nursing
Emily Dinh UC Santa Barbara Psychology & Brain Sciences
Katelyn Lemieux UCLA Business Economics
Shalimar McGinnis Grossmont College International Relations
Sruchi Patel UCLA Film and Television

Provide funding and mentorship for “Young Women Leaders”.

Typically, these local teens host an annual, all-day leadership conference. Due to Covid-19, the 2021 conference was cancelled. Instead, the young women, under AAUW’s mentorship, offered a Zoom Speaker Series with topics related to equity for young women as well as topics related to climate change. Funding for various other YWL expenses throughout the year was covered by a previous grant from Santa Clara County.

YWL 2021 Speaker Series – Workshop Recordings

Provide Community Action Grants to local non-profit organizations for projects whose goals are consistent with AAUW’s mission.

BookSmart Community Advantage for The Gift of Reading, which distributes hundreds of books each year to young readers who might not otherwise have their own new books
Britton Middle School for the purchase of a remote-learning program to encourage online student interactions
Britton Middle School for the purchase of digital drawing tablets to enable math teachers to more effectively communicate with students in the classroom and remotely.
Discovery Counseling Center in support of its “Bold Journey” and “Boldly Me” programs to build self-esteem and mentoring in elementary and middle school students.
Literacy Legacies & Poppy Jasper International Film Festival for projects to support a youth writing workshop and film program to enable girls to explore their identities and encourage them to enter filmmaking.
PA Walsh Elementary School  for gift cards to encourage consistent student attendance and participation in remote learning.
Paradise Valley Engineering Academy to furnish its new library space and build its book collection.
San Martin Gwinn School to increase the number of Spanish-language books in the school library and to host motivational speaker Lilyan Prado Carrillo for a Zoom assembly.

Sponsor a local speech competition as part of Speech Trek, a state-wide AAUW program.

Our 2021 competition was held over Zoom. The topic was “Has social media helped or hindered the breaking down of barriers for women and girls?” First, second, and third place winners each received cash prizes. Our first place winner also went on to place fourth in the state contest.

2021 Speech Trek winners with program facilitator Joanne Rooney

Lilianna Jaquet (1st) Oakwood School
Jullea Powell (2nd) Oakwood School
Jillian Bogosian. (3rd) Oakwood School

Provide scholarships to send MHUSD Middle School students to Tech Trek, an AAUW-sponsored one week math and science summer camp at Stanford University for middle school girls.

This year, Tech Tech was a virtual event; reduced costs enabled us to have 12 girls participate (instead of our usual 8). Each camper remotely assembled and programmed a robotic devices from a box of parts. They each verified their design via upload of an invention video.

2021 Tech Trek campers presenting at AAUW’s fall membership lunch

Keiry Iniguez Barajas Martin Murphy Middle School
Linnea Barney Charter School of Morgan Hill
Ava Chapman Britton Middle School
Teagan Hensley Jackson Academy of Math & Music
Ashlyn Ingraham Britton Middle School
Isabella Lim Charter School of Morgan Hill
Ciara Looney Charter School of Morgan Hill
Bernyce Nguyen Charter School of Morgan Hill
Rebecca Oxtot Martin Murphy Middle School
Sophia Ciprez Reyna Charter School of Morgan Hill
Dzali Romera Britton Middle School
Cara Wargock Jackson Academy of Math & Music

Support the Gavilan College Student Emergency Fund

We provided a one-time donation of $5,000 to help Gavilan College students who were impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic and shutdown. Students disproportionately affected by the pandemic included those whose families were unable to support them financially, such as parents with young families. Emergency funds helped with food, rent, utilities, and transportation.

Underwrite national AAUW priorities. These include graduate fellowships for women, community action grants, pioneering research, public policy advocacy, legal advocacy, and leadership programs.

The $75,000 “Morgan Hill Wildflower Run Research and Projects Grant Endowment” (#4403) was established in 2014 and funding was completed with proceeds from the Wildflower Run in 2019. It now provides funding annually for community action and career development grants.

Tesa Tapuriah Ottawa University M.A.C., Addiction Counseling Tapuriah works at Oahu’s only residential substance-abuse treatment facility for women and their infant children. Tapuriah’s completion of her master of science in addiction will assist her in advocating to remove inequities faced by these women as they reenter the community.

Another branch endowment, the $100,000 “Blaine/Cate Endowment for Graduate Fellowships” (#1802) was completed in 2001. It funds an annual graduate or postgraduate fellowship.

Lizette Solorzano USC PhD Immigration and immigrant integration; Latinx immigrant youth Solorzano’s dissertation research exposes the vulnerabilities, activist work and healing agencies of Los Angeles–based DACA beneficiaries in anti-immigrant times. .

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