PUMA and Rotary Invest in Education Through Scholarships

For eight students, the new school year brings more than financial assistance. It brings an opportunity to remain in the classroom and work toward a brighter future. The Rotary Club of Belize Sunrise and PUMA Belize are expanding a scholarship initiative that began seven years ago, giving students the resources and encouragement they need to thrive. Shane Williams has the story.

 

Shane Williams, Reporting

These students came to the Biltmore for breakfast this morning, but they left with something far more valuable: an opportunity to build a brighter future. Eight new scholarship recipients are now part of a program that began seven years ago with a simple goal to help students continue their education. The initiative started small, but it has since grown through a partnership between the Rotary Club of Belize Sunrise and PUMA Belize.

 

Maynor Larrieu, President, Rotary Sunrise

“We’ve been doing this collaboration with Puma for seven years, and every year it has grown, right? We progressively have been able to move, uh, the scholar recipients forward, and every year we have a new, uh, breed of scholars being, uh, receiving the scholarship. And what we did this year is, you know, we did our report looking back at their progress, and we presented that to Puma, so they’re aware of where we’re at, and some of the shortcomings as well. You know, this scholarship is not just to pay, you know, the tuition or school fees, but there’s also a, a tutoring component, you know, based on each student’s specific needs. So we check up on them often to see where they’re at, if they need, uh, further assistance, and then we collaborate with them, whether it’s with their mental wellness, whether they need math or English tutoring.”

 

For students receiving that help, the impact goes beyond the classroom. The scholarship takes some pressure off Ari Solano’s family and gives him even more reason to push toward his goals.

 

Ari Solano, Scholarship Recipient

“Feels very great. It, it’s, it’s probably gonna push me harder in my work and encouraging to be something I want in life.”

 

Shane Williams

“Now, how will it assist you? You know, it relieves your family.”

 

Ari Solano

“Help most like with the bills part because we can, we can have and buy a lee better life. So help mostly with the bill and push hard to keep it up.”

 

For Mitchealyn Fuller, the dream is even bigger. She wants to become a doctor and says this scholarship brings that future a little closer.

 

Mitchealyn Fuller, Scholarship Recipient

“It feel good. It could help me with my education because I want to be a doctor so this is gonna help me build up my future. It’s helped my mom because we have lots of bills and stuff and then we have to deal with school stuff and things and that. So it just help my mom.”

 

Maynor Larrieu, President of Rotary Sunrise, says they keep checking in with their scholars, looking at their progress and identifying where additional support is needed.

 

Maynor Larrieu

“We’re pretty much setting them up for success. And like we said today in the, in the meeting you know, we’re trying to build community leaders, and we need them to be engaged and, you know, just do their work.”

 

Shane Williams for News Five.

 

Attention readers: This online newscast is a direct transcript of our evening television broadcast. When speakers use Kriol, we have carefully rendered their words using a standard spelling system.

 

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