DACC STUDENTS AWARDED SCHOLARSHIPS AFTER DRAWINGS 

Several Doña Ana Community College (DACC) students are set to begin their next college semesters with extra funds. They are winners of DACC’s Scholarship Riches event.

The event awarded eight free scholarships of $500 to eligible students through a random drawing last week at the DACC East Mesa campus. The scholarships were made possible through donations by Dr. Don Cotter and Randy Farmer of Las Cruces.

Corey Gonzalez was one of the winners at the event. Gonzalez is a pre-business major who chose DACC due to the influx of information and resources available to students, “frankly, I think it’s a fantastic service,” he said of the event.  Gonzalez says these extra funds will help him in his academic journey, “I wouldn’t have been able to meet with private donors or learn about the large tuition assistance programs available without events like this to showcase them.”

Noemi Gama was one of DACC’s first winners of the Scholarship Riches event last year. She is planning to transfer to NMSU after graduation to pursue a bachelor’s degree in Communication Disorders and a master’s in Speech-Language Pathology. “The free scholarship drawing assisted me in paying for my summer classes,” Gama said. She was able to take two additional classes and get ahead in her degree plan, “I really appreciate the scholarship event at DACC, it offers a fair opportunity for everyone to receive a scholarship and provides a chance to meet others who offer resources and scholarships for students.”

Dr. Don Cotter, one of the donors of the scholarships, says his involvement meant one thing: an opportunity to give back. “We all have people who have helped us along the way,” Dr. Cotter says. “You can’t give back to them because typically they’re gone, but you can give to the future, and this is one of the ways of doing it.”