Twenty-Five MDC Students Win Coca-Cola Leaders Of Promise Scholarship

Twenty-five Miami Dade College students were awarded the Coca-Cola Leaders of Promise scholarship. The total marked a new record for the school.  

The College, which had 21 winners last year, had the most recipients nationwide. Among the selections were 23 Honors College scholars. 

Eduardo J. Padrón Campus led all campuses with 19 honorees. Each awardee received $1,000. 

This year’s  scholars were among 200 winners selected from a pool of more than 600 Phi Theta Kappa members nationwide. 

“This is the joy that I get from my job,” said Diego Tibaquirá, adviser to Beta Kappa Iota, the PTK chapter at Padrón Campus. “I want to see our students succeed in every way possible, and this has given us an opportunity to do much more with that.”

Since 2015, Padrón Campus has had 98 Leaders of Promise scholars, according to Tibaquirá. They had 16 awardees last year.

“The scholarships come from work, and our students do a lot of community service,” Tibaquirá said. “Our students are [currently] working on a cancer project…our goal is to fundraise $20,000 to give out to two organizations that are working on cancer research.”

To qualify for the award, applicants had to be members of PTK, be enrolled in six or more credits, have at least a 3.5 GPA and have completed between 12 and 36 credit hours.

The winners are: Mayte Alvarez, Santiago Arjona, Johnny Barahona, Alexzander Cano, Camilla Cardozo, Daniela Durruthy, Aaron Escobar, Jose Exposito Pino, Irene Fidalgo Galano, Nicole Lopez Rivero, Soledad Mayobre Lopez, Jorge Partidas, Hilary Ramirez Payamps, Elianis Rodriguez Arzola, Luis Rodriguez Palmero, Maria Romero, Adrian Rupert, Gabriela Sicre, Tomas Silvera, Camila Solari-Byrne, Alejandro Valdes and Jayred Velasquez.

“I feel like it opens doors to things I didn’t know I could have,” said Hilary Ramirez Payamps, President of the Padrón Campus PTK chapter. 

Three of the winners were tabbed as Global Leaders of Promise scholars. That award is earmarked specifically for applicants who do not have residency status in the United States. 

Those winners were: Uyen Hoang, Juan Subero-Bellizzio and Daniela Tabares.

“Coming here as an international student, a lot of times there are opportunities that you won’t be able to get just because you’re not from here,” said Hoang, who is studying finance in The Honors College at North Campus. “As long as [I’m] working hard, someone will recognize that.”

For more information about the PTK honor society and its opportunities, visit https://www.ptk.org/.

One of the interviews for this story was conducted in Spanish.

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