Every year our organization selects one applicant from our identity-based scholarships for the Inspire Award, which was founded in recognition of Pedro Gamino's story.

 

This award celebrates extraordinary students in the Central Valley who's knowledge is tied to identity and lived experiences. They share their equally vulnerable, powerful, and intelligent lens of the world, shedding light to the necessary transformations needed in our education systems, and in our communities, in order to create accessible pathways towards higher education. 

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The Inspire Award serves a narrative change; a change in how we define scholar, a change in how we structure our classrooms, and a change in how we dream of and envision revolutionary

educational spaces. The Inspire Awardee's story not only creates change across educational systems, but also within our own organization. Whether that be a complete revamping of our scholarship requirements in order to be accessible to undocumented and justice impacted students like Pedro; or a need to advocate,

support, and provide resources to community college students like Juan; or implementing language inclusive services for non-English speaking students like Karina... the Inspire Awardee teaches us how we can do better. 

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The Inspire Award comes with a cash prize of $5,000, a personal themtor, individual recognition on our social platforms, and continuous support from the Central Valley Scholars team. The is no application process for our Inspire Award. In order to be considered, students must qualify and apply for one of our eight identity-based scholarships.