““Without AHS, I would not have had the direction I was given in the years leading up to college. My parents didn’t go to college, my older sibling didn’t go to college... but AHS gave me those opportunities, and they encouraged me to use them.” ”
Some stories remind us exactly why we do this work. William Namvong's is one of them.
William is a member of our 2023 Cohort, coming to AHS from an underfunded high school where, as the first in his family to consider college, he didn't have a roadmap for what came next. Literally. It was AHS's Empowerment Program, Leader Week, and the mentors who checked in along the way who gave him the direction he needed. Your gift this season gives the next William Namvong a roadmap they didn't know existed.
Now a third-year Political Science major at UCLA, William has spent this past year building bridges, becoming a coordinator for UCLA's Filipino Culture Night. It's a role rooted in something AHS instilled in him early: cultural empathy, and the belief that understanding where people come from is the first step to leading them well.
This year, William brought his AHS roots full circle: he joined our team as our Summer Marketing Intern, working to help the next generation of scholars discover their own identity and step into their own leadership, the same way AHS once did for him.
"I don't think I'm on paper the most 'successful' Hamilton Scholar from my class," William reflected. "But I do think the journey I've been on--the ups and downs, the really hard falls--can hopefully symbolize the strength of a Hamilton Scholar."
That's the thing about resilience. It was the theme of UCLA's Filipino Culture Night this past year, and it's the thread running through William's entire story, and so many of our Hammies' stories.
Your support is what makes stories like William's possible. Every mentor conversation, every Leader Week, every roadmap we help a scholar build, it starts with people like you believing in what's possible for a first-generation student with untapped potential.
