Tennessee Voices, Episode 343: Saraí Ovalle and Scherly Gómez, Equal Chance for Education
Saraí Ovalle and Scherly Gómez both came to the United States as children, Ovalle from Mexico and Gómez from Honduras.
Neither knew what it meant to be undocumented until it seemed like their dreams were out of reach.
That is, until they encountered Equal Chance for Education, which has provided scholarships to go to college for more than 500 “Dreamers,” or recipients of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
Today, Ovalle is a teacher with Metro Nashville Public Schools. She also earned her master’s degree.
Gómez graduated from Meharry Medical College and is a practicing family medicine physician in Ohio.
They both credit ECE founder Dr. Mike Spalding for his generosity in starting the scholarship fund, which he developed because he believe it was unfair that smart, talented individuals were denied a shot at the American Dream because they unknowingly came to the U.S. without documents as children.
The young women shared their stories on this episode of the Tennessee Voices video podcast.
We were also joined by ECE Executive Director Molly Haynes who spoke about the organization’s mission and an upcoming event on Thursday, April 13, featuring Don Graham, co-founder of TheDream.US, a national scholarship fund for Dreamers.
He will be joined by former Sen. Bob Corker, R-Chattanooga, former Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, and University of Tennessee President Randy Boyd at The Hermitage Hotel from 6-9 p.m. that evening.
For tickets and more information, go to: equalchanceforeducation.org
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About Tennessee Voices
The Tennessee Voices videocast is a 20-minute program, which started in March 2020 and invites leaders, thinkers and innovators who have written guest columns for a USA TODAY Network Tennessee publication to share their insights and wisdom with me and our viewers.
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David Plazas is the director of opinion and engagement for the USA TODAY Network - Tennessee. He is of Colombian and Cuban descent, has studied or worked in several Spanish-speaking countries, and was the founding editor of Gaceta Tropical in Southwest Florida. He has lived in Tennessee since 2014. Call him at (615) 259-8063, email him at dplazas@tennessean.com or tweet to him at @davidplazas.
This article originally appeared on Nashville Tennessean: Video podcast: Saraí Ovalle, Scherly Gómez, Equal Chance 4 Education
