Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of profiles about Northern New Mexico students who received college scholarships through the Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund drive.
2008 fund drive is under way
Luke Winston’s story really is a case of a “small town boy done good.” Winston was the first recipient of a Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund platinum scholarship in 1998. He was a senior out of Las Vegas Robertson High School who went on to graduate from Harvard in 2003. His platinum scholarship provided $10,000 per year for four years, which helped take some of the financial burden off his family. He graduated with a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics.
While at Harvard, Winston won the Michael Rockefeller Memorial Fellowship to travel abroad for one year, during which he lived in an orphanage. The experience was life changing.
Since graduating from Harvard, he has lived in Santiago, Chile, where he is working in the non-profit sector as an executive director for VEGlobal, a multinational, non-governmental organization dedicated to protecting children’s rights and bringing new opportunities to underprivileged children.
Winston was inspired to start the organization after his experience with the orphanage showed him first-hand the effects of poverty and child abuse, as he was integrated into the huge family. On a daily basis, Winston woke up with the children, drove them to school, ate with them, helped with homework, laughed with them, held them when they cried, played sports, and put them to bed at night. Working with the staff, he realized that despite extremely difficult and often shocking pasts, children can enter a positive and loving environment to break away from the unjust life-cycles into which they were born. Their stories not only touched his heart, they angered him to learn about the terrible things that parents and society in general can let happen to a child. Yet, it was when he saw another orphanage not so well run that Winston felt he needed to take action.
“At 23 years of age, I did what I felt I could do: I put up a Web site and asked for more volunteers. This way, I was able to bring more help and expose more people to the realities of poverty,” said Winston. “E-mails began to flood in from every continent, and we started to organize until we had concrete projects and a multinational non-governmental organization.
“We provide great opportunities for the kids, but at the base of everything are positive influences and a sense of community,” said Winston.
Winston plans to return to Harvard this fall to pursue a joint master’s degree in Business Administration and Public Policy. “With more education, more support, and more focus, the possibilities are wide open,” said Winston. “I am interested in promoting corporate social responsibility to help businesses build social capital as well as profit. I also am very interested in sustainable development, looking at clean energy solutions and promotion of a green planet in developing nations.
“I miss science, so this would be exciting,” he continued. “I definitely plan to remain with VEGlobal as a member of the board of directors, and I will no doubt return to Chile for the rest of my life.“
Professionally, Winston loves the challenge of paving new roads and pushing his limits in trying to create something new. He said he’s never been so challenged as he has been having to manage 30 people in two different languages in a city of 6 million, found a non-profit in both the United States and South America, and constantly seek to make the organization evolve to provide better services to children. Every day is something different, he said, and there are frustrations and joys alike, but he’s never bored.
“There is hardly anything more important for the long-term success and sustainability of our country and state than education. The United States has reached a pinnacle of world standing after centuries of hard work, and we must continue investing in future generations for that to continue,” said Winston. “The most valuable resource a country now has are the minds of its young people. There are thousands of aspiring scientists, engineers, and leaders in New Mexico ready to contribute. Not only will these individuals benefit from new opportunities, the entire region will benefit from the new pool of talent. Here is your chance to open the door for a brighter future for such young people…and your community.”
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The 2008 Los Alamos Employees’ Scholarship Fund drive continues through May 30. "Celebrating 10 Years of Nurturing Dreams" is the theme of this year’s campaign. See the April 28 Daily NewsBulletin for more information.
Laboratory employees can donate by completing their pledge form and returning it to the Los Alamos National Laboratory Foundation. Employees also may participate in the campaign by going to the foundation Web page. Donations can be made through payroll deduction, credit card, cash, or check.
The foundation is a philanthropic grant-giving entity created in 1997. It supports a range of regional and community not-for-profit organizations.
For more information about the scholarship fund or the campaign drive, contact Debbi Wersonick of the Community Programs Office (CPO) at 7-7870 or sonic@lanl.gov, or Tony Fox of the Laboratory Foundation at (505) 753-8890 ext. 16, or tfox@lanlfoundation.org by email.
