The Oaxaca Education Fund is still celebrating our seven scholarship student who graduated from University in 2025!! We are so proud of them and of all the immense efforts they have made, not least during the pandemic! Congratulations to all of them for their success and to their families for their support!! We also congratulate our 14 other students who are still in university, working hard to reach their dreams! We expect to add another 3-5 students when we are in Oaxaca in August. No one is graduating this year.

Many, many thanks to all of our donors, with a special shout out to TASH, Inc. who sponsored Yareli, Itzel, and Lorenza for the final years of their studies!!

Our graduates have almost completed their mandatory year of social service/internship and will soon be able to write that final nursing exam for their license or apply for their title and start the job hunt! Yareli Paola Ventura Valencia, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Antonio Cantu, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Evelyn Santiago, Bachelor of Science in Nursing, Luis Vázquez, Bachelor of Arts in Business Administration, Itzel Mendoza, Bachelor of Engineering in Forest Management, Aaron Jonatan Rangel Morales, Tecnico Bachiller de Alimentos y Bebidas (Chef), and Lorenza Rojas Espinoza, Bachelor of Science in Nursing. Please keep them all in your prayers, as well as our other students and all the orphans we assist every month. 

 

 

 

AARON, AUGUST GRADUATE

 

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LORENZA & HER PARENTS, DECEMBER 2025

 

YOUR GIFTS THROUGHOUT THE YEAR ALSO HELP SUPPORT 50 ORPHANS IN THE VILLAGES WITH MONTHLY FOOD STIPENDS, AND OUR 14 CONTINUING UNIVERSITY STUDENTS WITH THEIR ANNUAL SCHOLARSHIPS! The children, young people, families and all the OEF volunteers thank you for your support! So far 29 young people from 3 of the villages have graduated from university! We are so proud of them! We never imagined when we first offered partial scholarships in 2017 that so many young people were just waiting for the opportunity to follow their dreams. What obstacles they have overcome!

Children are excited to receive their school supplies and workbooks! Zochiquilazala, Oaxaca.  Photo by Martha Martin

The OEF was founded for the children and young people of the Sierra Mixteca, Oaxaca, Mexico, to give them an opportunity to overcome the impoverishment of their  families and their villages through education. Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish in Rancho Penasquitos, San Diego ministered spiritually and physically to the migrants working in the fields near the parish beginning in 1985. The OEF was born in 2012 to serve their children and grandchildren in the five villages the team visits every year. The OEF provides school supplies to 1600 children in 2026, delivered in person, partial scholarships to 14 university students in 2026/27 with more to add in August, and monthly food stipends to 50 orphans. Educated youth will be able to stay in Oaxaca if they can make a living there and contribute to their families and society.  From 2014 to 2023, we provided high school fees to 130 young people in two villages, which is no longer necessary as the government now helps the families with these costs. We also provide reading glasses to the older women and men in the villages every year, and our team acupuncturist treats eager patients in every village, over a hundred every year. 

Photo by Martha Martin