Lee Honors College receives award from El Concilio Kalamazoo

Lee Honors College was honored to receive El Concilio’s Guerreros Award at the Nuestras Raices Gala on Nov. 11 in downtown Kalamazoo. El Concilio is a non-profit, community-focused organization located in Kalamazoo that seeks to support Latinx residents and their families and to promote their cultural significance in the region.  

El Concilio’s Guerreros Award is granted in recognition of an organization that has been involved and supports El Concilio’s mission and vision, which is “To enable and promote the prosperity of the Latinx Community.” When informing LHC Dean, Dr. Irma Lopez, of this honor, Adrian Vazquez-Alatorre, Executive Director of El Concilio, shared that “Your organization's leadership, dedication, support and commitment to the Latinx community are some of the great qualities for you and your organization have to earn this recognition.”

This recognition truly belongs to the Lee Honors College students who have supported El Concilio in several different ways over the last few years. The 2022 Medallion Scholars have been supporting El Concilio weekly by volunteering with their after-school youth program, La Academia Azteca. 2020 Medallion Scholar Marysol Millar teaches a weekly English as a Second Language (ESL) class at El Concilio and our LHC Peer Student Success Team assistant student coordinators, Andy Kaczmar and Anna Munson, organize a weekly service project with honors students to support Marysol and her class. A few of our PSST mentors also brought student volunteers—and our decorated LHC van—to take part in El Concilio’s annual community Trunk or Treat event this past Halloween.

We are grateful to our honors students and the meaningful contributions they’ve made through service projects with our community partners. We look forward to continuing our partnership with El Concilio and thank them for this honor.

Photo, left to right:
2022 Medallion Scholars, Carla Felton and Danna Guzman-Rodriguez; PSST assistant student coordinator, Andy Kaczmar; El Concilio Executive Director, Adrian Vazquez-Alatorre; and Lee Honors College Assistant Dean, Anthony Helms