That’s the monetary amount we’re asking from you. But more, we’re asking you to contact at least ten friends and ask them to also please consider participating. If you can contact more people whom you feel would do so, please do. This is about making a respectful request of a small gifted amount from a large number of people. We are all ONE. Please consider the power of the collective group in making a very deserving young woman’s dream come true. Also, if we can successfully pull this off as a group, we commit to payback in like-dream-fulfillment. You, if you choose to participate, are paying it forward.

When I was just a few years older than Amanda is now, I lived with a very powerful group of women. We were all very close. At that time, I went through a very rough emotional patch so the group gathered ‘round me to ask what would help the most. I told them I wanted to move back to my native Mexico. They asked how much money it would take to do so. I figured it out and then they divided by 8 (the number which comprised the group) and set out to raise it individually. Thanks to them, I was able to move back to Mexico and one of the most fruitful times of my life. Thereafter, whenever the “group” members needed funds to follow a dream, I contributed my 1/8th happily. That group support to just get me back to Mexico, enabled me to found a much needed elementary school in my village in the mountains of Mexico and many, many other important community projects. Looking back, the ripple effect of that support was astonishing. I had no family or parental support. These women were my family. I am asking you to be our family now in supporting my daughter, Amanda’s, dream.

I am hoping to apply that same principle on a much larger scale. Some of you know me; some of you know Amanda; some of you who may be reading this know neither of us but know someone who knows someone who cares. To all of you, I send great waves of gratitude in advance even for just considering this…

Here’s the situation:
Amanda has a dream to attend Wellesley College where she has been accepted. She is a gifted student on many, many levels.

I shoulda planned like I should surely be planning for retirement but quite a bit of my life as a single mother has been living hand to mouth, paycheck to paycheck, deciding between the nutritional value of beans vs. peanut-butter-and-jelly. During this time, I have contributed strongly to my community with my time. I have been Regional Manager for the Women’s Economic Self-Sufficiency Team, President of the NM Women’s Foundation, Founding Director of the Santa Fe Business Incubator and SEEDs (Self-esteem, Empowerment and Education through Dance studies), the latter with a mission to mentor young women in order to create healthy and strong individuals who are socially and fiscally responsible to themselves and their community.  I have volunteered for Creativity for Peace (an organization that brings together teenage girls from Palestine and Israel to know each other and work together toward a peaceful solution in the Middle East); for an “Income of Her Own” serving at-risk teenage girls with financial tools for entrepreneurship, for “Girls Rock!”; and I proudly serve as a “futurist” to bring Santa Fe New Music to the forefront of my community’s awareness as the new paradigm in music,  along with  a host of other programs to strengthen the fabric of my community both locally and globally. For my efforts, I have been nominated for my state’s Governor’s Award for Outstanding Woman of New Mexico. My objective, through my efforts, has been to strengthen teenage girls as a means to strengthen potential future mothers, i.e. the base of future societies. Now I am asking for help for my own delightful, wonderful, community-serving daughter.

We need help! I (foolishly), always believed Amanda would get the scholarships and financial aide she needed when it came to college. I spent my time guiding the development of my daughter from childhood thru her current adulthood, so she could be an active and noble citizen worthy of such sponsorship. She is. I couldn’t be more proud of Amanda: for her heart, accomplishments, dreams, nobility of spirit.

She has applied to and been admitted to Wellesley College. Tuition is $52k a year.
Amanda’s father inherited some unknown (by me) amount a few years ago which makes her ineligible for financial support from Wellesley. He refuses to participate financially in her education for reasons that are too personal and too complicated to go into here (though I’m glad to offer my personal opinion privately to anyone who might want). But here we are. This is her dream. We are being stymied in financial support on a Federal and specific level for a woman’s college based on her father’s absolute refusal to participate. If I had the means to financially support this dream, I would hesitate not a nano-second. I’d give whatever I have to have her have what I was denied by a father figure: a strong education. So that in thirty plus years, she won’t be where I currently am financially. Both Amanda and I are just now very stressed out by being both so close and so just-beyond-reach-dream fulfillment due to finances and an unwilling father to support such a dream. I am reaching out to a larger ‘family’: You. Can you help please? Ten dollars and send this link to at least ten friends. If you delete, you will not have a tragedy befall you. This is not a chain letter. This is a sincere request for a very deserving young woman trapped in a financing-college hell. I am reaching out to the larger family of humanity. My daughter is the one falling through the finance-for-college-cracks. Will you please help pull her out? Thank you! It’s all about reaching the numbers of all possible people for whom this project might resonate. So consider, know how appreciated you are, and please pass on with a personal plea if you are willing. Thank you for even considering. Pay it forward and I will reciprocate accordingly.  I promise. If ever you wondered where ten dollars might be best spent (two or three lattes, probably less than a movie outing; three gallons of gas at todays’ prices) please consider possible impact, our appreciation and the power of unity.

Thank you, again.

Marisa Del Rio