When you support the VESA Scholarship Fund, almost every dollar goes directly to a graduating English Learner in Virginia. That gift becomes tuition support, a textbook, a deposit towards rent, a laptop for late-night studying. And it carries a message money alone can't send: that their determination did not go unnoticed, that we believe in their goals and aspirations. Your donation is proof, in the clearest terms a student will ever receive, that their effort was seen and that we're investing in where they're headed next.
They've come this far. Help them go further.
Each year, VESA awards scholarships to graduating English Learners across Virginia who are headed to a college, university, community college, or workforce training program. For many of these students, a scholarship isn't just financial help. It's confirmation that their years of hard work, in and out of the classroom, were seen and valued.
Recipients are selected not because a form was filled out correctly, but because their story stood out: a student who spent a year or more in an EL program during grades 6–12, who is graduating and moving toward what's next, who has real financial need, and who wrote an essay that made the selection committee stop and pay attention.
Virginia's English Learners are already doing the hard part. They're showing up, studying, working, interpreting, and dreaming past every obstacle in front of them. The VESA Scholarship Fund exists to meet that effort with support.