“It’s great to say, good luck, best wishes, but it takes money to go to college,” – Sonia Falcon
Texas Border Business –
By Roberto Hugo Gonzalez,
Valley Alliance of Mentors for Opportunities and Scholarships better known as VAMOS, was founded in 1996 by a group of local business and professional people in response to an urgent need to improve educational opportunities for graduating high school seniors.
Their mission was a simple, but monumental task, and that is to assist deserving students of Hidalgo, Starr, and Cameron Counties with fulfilling their dreams of pursuing a higher education.
This year, VAMOS celebrated their yearly night of giving, a night of making dreams come true to 75 eager students for higher education.
“My name is Joe Quiroga, President of Texas National Bank and on behalf of Texas National Bank and all of our directors who are big supporters of VAMOS we welcome you tonight to this ceremony.” Quiroga is a board director for VAMOS, he opened the ceremony to welcome all students accompanied by their parents and family. He said, “VAMOS, it’s just a great organization, and tonight we want this to be about our students.”
Sonia Falcon, VAMOS President of the Board of Directors, said, “This is an important event because we are honoring you.” She continued, “This is your hard work that got you here, but it’s our hard work to raise money so we can get you to college because it takes money to do it.”
You could see the happiness and high expectations on the faces of the students who were present to receive their award money to fuel their dream of higher education.
“It’s great to say good luck, best wishes but it takes money.” Falcon said, “When you get to college, they want to know where the check is. It takes a lot of people in our community and a lot of sponsors to raise the money to give to you, and tonight, we are going to award a million dollars in scholarship to 75 students.”
Needless to say, but the news brought a standing ovation.
At that point, Falcon introduced Dr. Gerardo Lopez Mena, (Internal Medicine) representing Doctors Hospital at Renaissance, the presenting sponsor.
“Thank you very kindly. Every time I come to one of these events I’m always just in awe of how beautiful it is, and how amazing an impact VAMOS is having, and how much of an impact it’ll have in all your lives,” Dr. Lopez said.
It is important to say that Doctors Hospital at Renaissance has been an unprecedented supporter. For several years, DHR have given VAMOS $50,000 to participate in their Gold Golf Tournament, which is crucial for the nonprofit to raise additional funds.
The event always introduces speakers that have had an unusual upbringing, role models that have gone through difficult times but despite difficulty they accomplished their goals.
It was Judge Rose Guerra Reyna from the 206th State District Court that had the opportunity to inspire the young students that made it to this event and are deserving of needed scholarships to continue on their path to higher education.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen. It’s my honor and privilege to speak to such an outstanding group of young men and women.” She said, “When Miss. Falcon called me and asked me if I would be willing to speak I was like “absolutely”, and I have a real passion for young folks because you are our future.”
Judge Guerra Reyna shared a different perspective of who she is from what was read from her bio to introduce her for this event.
She said, “I grew up to my awesome mom, my role model who is here with me as my guest this evening.” She continued, “My mom did not have anything more than a high school education so did my dad, but they had five kids to raise.”
She attributes her father, the late Antonio Guerra with inspiring them all. “He always told us how important our education was, but there’s a big difference between walking the walk and talking the talk,” she said.
According to her, late in life, her father decided to enroll in college. He worked in the daytime just as her mom Rebecca Flores Guerra did. She pointed out, “You need two paychecks to put food on the table for five kids. I won’t even tell you how many years it took, but he did graduate from college.”
Judge Guerra Reyna remembers that she was 13 years old at the time, being the next to the youngest of the five kids, and a few months after he graduated from college. Sadly, she said, he had a heart attack and passed away leaving her mom with a high school education and the responsibility to feed and educate five kids.
“That’s only one of a million reasons why she’s my role model.” She said, “She worked hard, and with a lot of love and support, she encouraged all of her children to do what my dad did except not on the extended plan.”
When her father passed away, it just became a challenging time for the family. But the strength of Rebecca, the immense love for her children made the desire bigger, she needed her children to make it in life.
Judge Guerra Reyna went ahead and graduated from high school, and realized after seeing her mom struggle she said to herself, “I better get that college diploma.”
So she went to Pan American University at that time when she realized the family didn’t have a lot of money, so the quickest way to get through school was to attend every summer session, take a lot of hours, and she graduated Magna Cum Laude from Pan-American University and then she went to Austin.
“I graduated from the University of Austin so young from law school not because I was super smart. It was because I couldn’t afford to be in school for a long time,” she told the students.
“I’m very honored to be able to say that all of my siblings and myself have college degrees.” She said, “My mother laughs sometimes and tells me that we are all so smart and feels dumb because she didn’t go to college,’”
In her defense, Judge Guerra Reyna says that her mom graduated from the school of hard knocks, and her accomplishment reached beyond anyone’s expectations. “For those parents who didn’t have the opportunities, it pleases me to know and to see the love and support that you have for your children and to realize that we may not have had the opportunities that they have now, but you encourage them and love them along the way,” she stated. TBB
