“As someone who went through this program in its entirety, I am so grateful to be educated, employed, debt-free, and cooking up meals of success for my family. “
Boys Hope Girls Hope of Colorado alumna and Board Member, Aline Thongvanh, spoke about the mission and impact of Boys Hope Girls Hope at our 2024 Success Starts with Hope Breakfast..
Couldn’t join us for the event? Read her speech to hear Aline’s thoughts on the impact Boys Hope Girls Hope makes on the lives of our scholars and collegians.
Full Text of Aline’s Speech
Good morning everyone! I’m so glad each and every one of you was able to attend this year’s Success Starts with Hope Breakfast. I see a lot of familiar faces from last year, and an equally exciting number of new faces this time around.
I stand before you today because I want to talk about my three favorite things: Hope, Success, and Food. In this organization, where there is hope, there is opportunity and action that leads to success.
We believe that hope is like the plate you have holding your breakfast. The hashbrowns and the eggs are your opportunity ingredients. Behind the scenes, the pan, oil, and stove are the action tools. The final result? Your yummy, nutritional, fulfilling meal of success.
The reality is not everybody starts with a plate. Or pans. Or a flame. And not everyone has access to those fresh ingredients that are used to make the meal. The end result looks different for everybody here. What Boys Hope Girls Hope strives to do is provide those tools, those ingredients. Our goal is to provide hope and help transform action and opportunity into success that can be savored at the dining table of life.
I say “we” and “our” because I was a scholar. I was a collegian. I am an alum of BHGH and CSU (Go Rams except for that UT Austin game). And after learning to cook my first few meals of success, I can proudly say I am an employee at Charles Schwab and a Board Member of this brilliant organization. And it all started with hope.
Our scholars and collegians hope to go University of Denver, Community College of Aurora, or UCCS. They hope to be the captain of the volleyball team, or be class president. They hope to ace the next mid-term exam. They hope to get that cool Google internship with the slides inside. They hope to get their dream jobs.
They also hope to help their family with the bills. They hope to get food on the table. They hope to pave the way for their little brother or sister. These kids, they have hopes.
There is action between that plate of hope and that meal of success. Boys Hope Girls Hope ignites the flame of action. We take these academic chefs-in-training to the farmers market of opportunity. When I was a scholar, I said yes to the opportunities BHGHCO provided, even when I didn’t know exactly what I was getting into. My fellow collegians showed up when asked to mentor the scholars. We took concurrent enrollment classes, signed up for weekend activities, stayed after school or came in on our sacred days off.
Our scholars and collegians and their families know they must act to transform hope into success. Boys Hope Girls Hope has had hopes too. And action has cooked up successes. Thirty years ag we started with eight boys. This year we will serve over 125 scholars and collegians, from freshman year in high school through the first job in their career field – 25 Regis Jesuit High School students, 50 Aurora Central High School students and over 50 collegians all igniting hope into success.
From our Jesuit tradition, we are focused on the importance and necessity of education. We truly believe education is the MSG in our scholars’ success meals. While high school graduation is an incredible milestone for our scholars, that’s only breakfast baby. Ultimately, the mission is for our scholars to graduate with a degree from a 2 or 4 year institution with a path towards a career with little to reasonable college debt. Our program managers and volunteers spend hundreds of hours with each scholar helping them with anything from math homework, to community service opportunities, budgeting, finding scholarships, scheduling their ACTs…all the eggs and hashbrowns in between.
As someone who went through this program in its entirety, I am so grateful to be educated, employed, debt-free, and cooking up meals of success for my family. And I could go on all day about the accomplishments of our scholars and a wicked French toast recipe but there are other people I want you to hear from this morning, so I’d encourage you to check out the program at your seat where you can read our stats and our recipe for success.