Migrant Education & Emergency Fund
Since 2006 the Weston T. Hyde Oswego County Educational Foundation (WTHOCEF) has worked to raise funds to provide scholarship assistance for migrant students (children of migratory farmworkers) and to provide emergency assistance for migratory farmworkers and their families. During this period WTHOCEF has provided scholarships for 78 students, assisted dozens of families with emergency rental assistance to prevent homelessness, assisted farmworkers and their children with assistance with medical expenses, helped with utility bills for farmworkers facing unemployment, injury or other challenges, assisted families with funeral expenses, paid activity fees for school events, provided emergency food and baby supplies, and assisted with expenses for vehicle repairs among other items.
In recent years WTHOCEF has increasingly focused its efforts on providing scholarship support for migrant students graduating high school. Although these scholarships are quite modest (typically around $200) they are very useful in helping students with post-secondary expenses and are very meaningful to the students and their families.
Migrant farmworkers provide an essential service in our community helping to ensure that we have an abundant and continuous source of food. They often face numerous challenges (long work hours, low wages, no paid time off, lack of transportation, interrupted education for their children, limited access to technology, periods of unemployment due to seasonal nature of their work, etc.) that make it hard for them to meet their basic needs and to assist their children with pursuing their educational goals. By supporting WTHOCEF’s Migrant Education & Emergency Fund you can show your appreciation for the essential work that farmworkers provide for our community. Your donation will help make a family’s life a little brighter.
Migrant Scholarship Recipient
Ana Mendez-Rodriguez: 2018 Graduate of G. Ray Bodley HS
My name is Ana Mendez-Rodriguez; I am a Senior at Wells College and am majoring in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Throughout my four years at Wells, I have participated in many clubs, volunteered for numerous organizations, and been on the Dean's list consecutively. As an alternative spring break in 2019, a group of Wells students and I volunteered to help build homes for low-income families in Sumter, South Carolina. We partnered with Habitat for Humanity and spent a week finishing framing the house. Aside from this experience, I was also the Elections Manager on the 2019-2021 Collegiate Cabinet and was responsible for organizing the elections for the class officers. Since my sophomore year, I became a teacher's assistant for Chemistry and have gained skills in the laboratory. I also set up an internship as a Chemistry tutor and a research intern at a greenhouse in Auburn, NY. Now, I am writing my undergraduate thesis on the genetic modification of endogenous production of (E)-ß-farnesene in cucumbers as a better pest management approach. I plan to graduate with honors and apply to graduate schools in New York to further my education in Biochemistry and Plant Pathology.