The Achievement Award Program kicked off the school year with a Welcome Reception filled with festivities and food celebrating the achievements of the new cohort, marking TAAP’s eighth year of existence. As an indication of TAAP’s growth throughout the years, this year’s cohort is bigger than ever, with thirty three incoming freshman and transfers, as opposed to the usual twenty five. It was a time to mingle with new and returning TAAP members, donors, and staff, and a time to reenergize the TAAP love that may have become dormant over the summer.

This year’s student speaker was Carlos Alfaro, originally form the San Gabriel Valley of Southern California. He talked about the academic challenges that he faced in high school, subsequently forcing him to attend community college. Yet, with the determination that is present in every single TAAP scholar, Alfaro used the time spent in community college to create a new educational persona for himself, to not only gain acceptance into Cal, but to clarify his career goals to one day become district attorney of Los Angeles. And like all TAAP scholars, Alfaro expressed his gratitude to donors for their generosity and assistance to the TAAP program.

The event culminated in the usual TAAP fashion: many TAAP scholars departed not only with the feeling that they are part of a special and exciting program, but with hands full of leftovers too.