Alumni Connections March 2016

Lisa Sobajian and Joey Hurlocker, 2015 Scholars at Stanford who met during their Scholars Weekend, are leading a book drive for high schools in need in the Palo Alto area. Stanford’s freshman book program requires all students to read 3 books selected by the University’s President over the summer before their freshman year. Lisa explained, “It’s a great program and I thought it would be fantastic to share the program with high schools in need.”

Having attended a public school in Los Angeles, Lisa knew many teachers find it difficult to obtain new sets of books for a classroom of 40 students, let alone enough books to teach 2 to 3 classes of students. She contacted Joey, and they asked fellow freshmen to donate their books to schools in need. They were able to collect over 600 lightly used books, and plan to do it again next year!

Lisa and Joey consider this a wonderful accomplishment because their project has never been done at Stanford. The books will be donated to 5 large urban high schools in California and many smaller high schools. “Coca-Cola Scholars are change makers!! I am proud to be a member of this select group,” Lisa said.

This February in Northern California, Coca-Cola celebrated their 6th year of community engagement during the most important and largest Chinese American cultural celebration, the Lunar New Year ~ The Year of the Fire Monkey. The 15-day celebration culminated with the annual Chinese New Year street festival and night parade with an estimated 1 million spectators on the streets of San Francisco.

The beloved Polar Bear was featured on the “Coke Float” along with members of our Northern California Asian Business Resource Group, our customers and 9 local Coke Scholars. Scholars who attended included Carrie Schroeder (1989), Jackie Welch (1990),  Karen Cruden (1995), Madison Rezaei (2008), Julia Qiu (2008), Kylan Nieh (2010), Sarah Williams (2011), Maricarmen Hernandez (2013), and Abhishek Mangla (2015). Thank you to Dora Wong from The Coca-Cola Company for inviting our Scholars!

Jamie Lathan (1996 Scholar and a Dean at The North Carolina School of Science and Math), Hager Rand (President, Durham Coca-Cola Bottling Company), and Jean McGuire (Durham Coca-Cola) welcomed 2016 Scholars Tejal Patwardhan and Jalen McGee to the Coca-Cola Scholars family.

Pictured left to right: Ms. Patwardhan (Tejal’s mom), Gina Burger (Tejal’s school counselor), Hager Rand, Tejal Patwardhan (2016), Jamie Lathan (1996), Jean McGuire, Elizabeth Peeples (one of Tejal’s humanities teachers), and Todd Roberts (the Chancellor of NCSSM).

Coca-Cola Scholars joined Kirk Glaze (Public Affairs Director, The Coca-Cola Company) at the American Indian College Fund 2016 Flame of Hope Gala in New York City!

Pictured left to right: Elizabeth Del Cid (2001), her husband John Mancebo, Celeste Campbell, Kyle Baldwin (2008), Cynthia Lindquist, Kirk Glaze (The Coca-Cola Company), Vira Tarnavska, Manraj Singh (2012), Judy Hou (2012), and her guest Maggie Thompson.

Our staff enjoyed a visit from Derreck Kayongo, the new CEO of the Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. Derreck spoke at our 2013 Leadership Summit and will be speaking to our 2016 Coca-Cola Scholars when they come to Atlanta for their Scholars Weekend in a few weeks.

Antonio McBroom (2004) came by our office with his colleague Mike Horton to share some ice cream! Antonio owns a Ben & Jerry’s franchise and brought us 3 new Ben & Jerry’s flavors to try.

Abby Martin (2007) joined us for lunch while in Atlanta for work.

Pat Blute (2008) also visited our office while in Atlanta for work.