WEEK LONG BUSINESS/ACCOUNTING SUMMER CAMP AT UW FOR MINORITIES The Accounting Career and Awareness Program recruits minority students and provides educational enrichment experiences and practical help in the career fields of accounting and business related areas.On the University of Washington campus, ACAP runs a week long Summer Residency Program for current sophomores, juniors and seniors. Workshops include building resumes, financial planning, computer skills and business related topics. Applications for this program are due May 29 and are available online. The website is www.ACAPseattle.org

It is with great regret that I announce the cancellation of the 3rd Cinco de Mayo Poetry/Oratory contest. Due to a couple different set backs the event will not take place this year. We apologize to anyone who had planned on participating and hope that you will try again next year.

Thanks for your support.

LETI PRESS RELEASE

10th Anniversary Celebration

Thank you to everyone who was able to attend LETI’s 10th Anniversary and Volunteer Celebration on Wednesday, January 21, 2009. After the extreme weather conditions of December the event was postponed until January. The event was held at the Las Americas Business Center and was attended by a generous amount of LETI volunteers and supporters. The event was hosted by LETI President, Rosario Reyes and Volunteer Coordinator, Haley Brandt. As guests arrived to the Las Americas Business Center they were greeted by LETI volunteers and the beautiful music of harpist Adrian Ramirez. Before presentations began guests enjoyed dinner provided by Jose and Anna Estrada from Taqueria Guaymas and first LETI President, Rosa Reyes. Presentations on LETI’s past and future were conducted by the President and Volunteer Coordinator. Long time volunteers and supporters recognized for their ongoing devotion and support to LETI’s projects and causes were Susana Caro, Nadine McCray, Sally Guzman, Maria Garcia and Jose Tello.

After all presentations were made winners for the fundraising raffle were drawn. First prize was an Ocean Shores vacation on Valentine’s weekend awarded to Ms. Cano. Second prize was a Nintendo Wii and went to Mr. Rolando Miculax, and finally third prize of a power lift recliner went to Ms. Sardinia. The rest of the evening was spent visiting and enjoying good food and friends. Thank you all.

The fundraising raffle for LETI's 10th anniversary and volunteer celebration took place on Wednesday night, January 21st. Winners of each prize are listed below...

1st Place: #000902 Ms. Cano, winner of an Ocean Shores vacation on Valentine's day weekend

2nd Place: #000910 Mr. Rolando Miculax, winner of a Nintendo Wii

3rd Place: #001437 Ms. Sardinia, winner of a power lift recliner

Due to the extreme weather conditions that are predicted for tonight and tomorrow the Latino Educational Training Institute has made the decision to postpone our 10th Anniversary and Volunteer Appreciation celebration to this coming January. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you, and would like to remind you that we will be continuing to sell raffle tickets and holding the raffle at the new undetermined date of the celebration. All proceeds for the raffle go towards LETI's 2009 educational projects. We appreciate your support and look forward to seeing you guys at our celebration in January.

The Latino Educational Training Institute will be celebrating 10 years of working with the latino community this December. On Wednesday, December 17, 2008 at 6:00pm to 8:00pm we will be holding a volunteer appreciation open house. Appetizers will be served and we will be celebrating 10 years of helping the community and celebrating those who have helped us. On the day of the open house we will be holding a raffle. Tickets for the raffle are $2.00 a piece and all proceeds will go towards the educational projects LETI has planned for the upcoming year. Items raffled off will be a weekend vacation in Ocean Shores on Valentine's/President's Day weekend, a power lift recline chair, and a Nintendo Wii. If you are interested in making a donation to LETI or buying a raffle ticket then please contact us at LETI.1998@gmail.com or come to Las Americas Business Center in Lynnwood, Washington.

Attention Spanish speaking students:

The Latino Educational Training Institute is sponsoring a Cinco de Mayo Poetry/Oratory contest for all youth ages (14-18) attending one of the following schools:

1. Meadowdale High School
2. Lynnwood High School
3. Mountlake Terrace High
4. Edmonds-Woodway High School
5. Mariner High School
6. Kamiak High School

Winners will be rewarded with cash prizes. The Cinco de Mayo event will be held on May 9, 2009. If you are interested in further details of the contest then please e-mail us at LETI.1998@gmail.com and we will send you the forms needed to participate in this contest. All registration forms must be received by March 16, 2009.

LETI was featured at the annual Multi-Cultural Festival at St. Thomas More this past weekend with an informational booth and arts and crafts for the children. The arts and crafts were a great success with the kids.

It was a beautiful sunny day on Saturday at the Multi-Cultural Festival and the mini-pinata and maracas we were making with the kids were a big hit. LETI managed to raise a couple hundred dollars for St. Thomas More as well as receiving quite a few donations for ourselves.

Thank you to all of you who came our to support LETI and those of you who donated. We look forward to participating again next year and seeing you all again.

Dear LETI Supporter,

We are pleased to announce that AmeriCorps has joined forces with the Latino Educational Training Institute and we will have our first full time AmeriCorps member working with us this year.

Haley Brandt will be our AmeriCorps team member for the year of 2008-2009. Haley is one of 18 AmeriCorps members who will be serving at various host sites through out the Snohomish County. Her term of service with LETI began at the beginning of September 2008 and will go through to the end of June 2009. Haley is an Edmonds native, who attended the University of Washington and recently graduated in the spring of 2008. She graduated from the UW with a Bachelors degree in Sociology and hopes to eventually go on to get her Masters in Social Work.

During Haley’s ten month service with LETI our goal is to work on capacity building for the organization as a whole as well as increase community connections in the non-profit world to equip Miss Brandt with the skills and knowledge she will need when she moves on from this position. Some of the projects that we hope to work on this year are teaching the FDIC Money Smart program (financial literacy) in the Edmonds and Mukilteo school districts. We hope to link with the High School Senior Project program to execute our projects this year.

For each of these projects we will be creating an advisory board and this is where we need your help. The initial three advisory boards that we need to start on are:

1. Poetry/Oratory Cinco de Mayo Celebration
2. 2009 Spanish Immersion Summer Camp
3. FDIC Money Smart program for financial literacy

All we request is a little bit of your time and support to help make our dreams for LETI come true.

Thank you for your consideration. Contact me for more information.

Sincerely,
Rosario Reyes

LETI will be participating in the annual Multi-Cultural Festival at Saint Thomas More Parish on Saturday, September 27, 2008. The event starts at 10am and goes to 5pm, admission is free.

In addition to LETI's informational booth there will be music and dancing from many different countries, raffles, food from around the world, and activities like face painting, balloon making and other various games for children.

Come support LETI and celebrate diversity, Saturday, September 27, 2008.

Learn to navigate Snohomish County's youth services. Plan to attend on May 3. (Click the image for a larger view.)

Financing an education in the United States is difficult, even for a US student. For international students, paying for college in the US is even harder. Almost two-thirds of all students enrolled at private four-year US schools receive loans of some type. US students can receive loans guaranteed by the government (Stafford loans, among others), but these valuable loans are not available to international students. Luckily, private student loans are available to international students on the same terms received by US students.

Details and links...

Pass this along to your school administrators:

A variety of agencies and nonprofit organizations can compete nationally for grants to promote innovation, high quality programming and expansion of the field of service-learning through Learn and Serve America. Funds are used to provide training and technical assistance, evaluate results, and implement local programs. Seventy-five to eighty percent of funds are subgranted to local partnerships between schools and community- and faith-based organizations for program implementation. As part of a Corporation-wide priority, grantees are encouraged to focus on providing opportunities for disadvantaged youth to serve others, through, among other possible activities, intensive Summer of Service programs.

In addition to assisting students in meeting academic content standards and obtaining skills needed for the transition to work, service-learning provides a unique opportunity for young people to develop the knowledge, skills and dispositions of effective citizenship and a lifelong ethic of service.

Learn and Serve America continues to reach diverse and underserved populations, with 35% of its participants from minority populations and 27% of its programs located in schools where at least 50% of the students are eligible for the federal school lunch program.

Source, more info, links

The site www.childluresprevention.com is one of many sites educating and providing resources to both parents and teachers. In the sites recent articles they list statistics that bring close to home a situation long overlooked. The percentage of children being affected by this is large (1 in 4 girls is sexually abused before the age of 14.) and worse, the number is only of those reported. Please look at the site's recent article....

Source: Hopper, J. (1998). Child Sexual Abuse: Statistics, Research, Resources. Boston, MA Boston University School of Medicine.

Reports and Statistics

Considering a legal career? Washington’s Latino residents are targets for a variety of scams including predatory loans, wire transfer fraud and notary publics representing themselves as lawyers. To address this growing problem, Attorney General Rob McKenna will convene the second of two statewide Latino Consumer Education Conferences Friday, Oct. 20, in Yakima.

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