Now in its 14th year, Carbondale-based 5Point Film has awarded local high school students three 5Point Dream Project scholarships.
Tracy Wilson, 5Point Dream Project coordinator, has witnessed how the opportunity can be the catalyst for shaping a student’s future. “Many of them, through these projects, have launched a path to what they’re pursuing in college or elsewhere,” she said.
The students whose projects best exemplify the 5Point’s guiding principles — purpose, respect, commitment, humility and balance — are awarded $2,000 to make their dream a reality. Since its inception, the 5Point Dream Project has given over $110,000 to 77 students.
Dream Project recipient Rye Rothman, a junior at Colorado Rocky Mountain School, intends to collaborate with self-defense instructors to teach scenario-based defense skills and personal safety tactics.
Rothman transferred from Fairview High School in Boulder, where she was assaulted during her freshman year. As a part of her healing process, she learned kickboxing. Through the classes, she realized that “empowerment is not just emotional, but physical,” she said.
Classes can be expensive, so Rothman’s goal is to hold free self-defense workshops, empowering people to protect themselves, and making the community a safer place where people can feel more comfortable.
Candace Samora, a junior at Roaring Fork High School (RFHS), will focus on her Navajo heritage by taking a language class over the summer and learning the traditional Navajo art of rug weaving with her mother and grandmother (Másání), who live on the Navajo Native Reservation.
“Weaving is a dying art, so I’m motivated to weave rugs because I know by the time I’m my grandmother’s age, there will be even fewer people who know how to continue our tradition in our culture,” Samora shared. Navajo rug weaving uses yarn dyed in natural colors and woven on a cedar wood loom.
Samora said learning the language is the first step toward her goal of working in anthropology, studying Navajo culture through participating in traditional practices.
Angie Aguilar, an RFHS junior, has a dream to create a stronger bond between Latino children and their parents by promoting Spanish literacy in young people.
Aguilar, born in the United States, moved to Mexico when she was 3 years old and returned when she was 7. She has concerns about Spanish speakers losing their language skills.
She has participated in the Roaring Fork Pre-Collegiate Program since she was in the seventh grade. Her mentors are Roaring Fork School Board Director Kenny Teitler and his wife, Karla Stukey, who she plans on traveling with to the Guadalajara International Book Fair.
She aspires to bring knowledge back to help young bicultural students build their Spanish vocabulary and take pride in their heritage. “I’m specifically gearing this toward younger kids to make the connection with their language and their culture while they’re young,” Aguilar said.
Wilson said the $2,000 award brings another level of support to the students. “For a lot of them, it’s one thing to be supportive, but it’s also something to say we believe in you enough to financially support this project,” she stated.
For more information about 5Point Film and the Dream Project, go to www.5pointfilm.org
