Medrano: Supporting expanded and creative educational opportunities for Hanna students

Blanca Lambarri:

I would like to bring forward a representative group of the Homer Hanna High School Class of 1979.

They and their fellow classmates will be celebrating their 45th High School Reunion next week, and they are here to offer a gift of support, specifically to Hanna, and our Hanna Eagles. 

I would like to introduce their founding donor and committee member, Joe Medrano, and he will introduce his fellow classmates and committee members from the home of Hanna High School Class of 1979.

Joe Medrano:

Thank you, Mrs. Lambarri and good evening Board Members. Thank you for the opportunity to share a brief timeline summary of events that led us here. 

First, I would like to acknowledge our Committee Members, Laura Lucio, Mario Fasci, Norman Esquivel and our 4 year class Principal, who many of you may know, Ms. Sylvia Perez. I’d like to thank them and the Hanna Leadership Team for their participation and patience as we have moved this effort forward. 

Joining us is Dr. Diane Garza, executive director of the RGV Philanthropic Foundation, who was instrumental in guiding us through the Fund Creation process. 

It is the intent of the Founder, the Committee Members and subsequent donors that this gift is to provide support for Expanded and Creative Educational Opportunities for Hanna students, as determined by Hanna Leadership – to help move forward one Hanna student or a group of Hannah students towards success. 

It is also the intent of the Committee and our donors to seek additional support between 2024 and 2029 in honor, in honor of our 45th and 50th Graduation Anniversaries of the Hanna High School Class of 1979.

A check presentation to Hanna High School. Joe Medrano and Blanca Lambarri hold the check. (Photo: RGG/Steve Taylor)

Very briefly, this all started in 2020 during a time when our classmates and I had begun to facilitate funding for several local nonprofit organizations in Brownsville, including Big Give Brownsville and the successful Youth in Philanthropy initiative, led by Dr. Diane Garza and the RGV Philanthropic Foundation, and in which BISD (Brownsville ISD) is also greatly involved.

After a few years of facilitating supplemental funding for these initiatives, one of our classmates, Jorge, asked me if we could somehow figure out a way to “help at Hanna.” Coincidentally, this was around the time that Hanna had won their second consecutive NCUST (National Center for Urban School Transformation) Award. And after that announcement, Jorge and I were even more determined to create an opportunity that would support the good work being done by Mrs. Lambari and Hanna Leadership at our very own Alma Mater. 

I will spare you most of the details of the next 16 months spent establishing a platform to distribute this gift. But, suffice to say, it involved many meetings, required establishing a Designated Fund, establishing our Leadership Committee, and even had our Classmate and The Facilitator of our first donation, Jorge Ruiz de Velasco, actually fly in from his home base in San Francisco, California, to San Diego to meet and congratulate Mrs. Lambari and her team at the NCUST Awards Ceremony – as he was that impressed that they represented his high school, Alma Mater, our high school, Alma Mater, Hanna High School from Brownsville, Texas.

That classmate, Jorge Ruiz de Velasco currently serves as the deputy director and senior research associate of the Gardner Center at Stanford University, which works on the study and promotion of change in public schools, and who was instrumental in facilitating our first donation towards this gift to Hanna.

This esteemed committee from the Hanna Class of 1979 and I are confident that Mrs. Lambarri and her Hanna Leadership Team have determined and will continue to determine the best use of these funds, and we’re grateful that we can help in this capacity. 

In closing, perhaps we are not the first or only group of Hanna graduates – or graduates from any BISD high school for that matter – to give back to their Alma Mater. But if I can provide anyone with information on the unique way we did this through the guidance of Dr. Diane Garza and the RGV Philanthropic Foundation, I’m happy to do so.

And I trust Dr. Garza is willing to help provide additional information as well. 

Thank you. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak this evening, and continued success to BISD, and especially to Mrs. Lambarri, and the awesome teachers, staff, and students at Hanna High School. Thank you.

Editor’s Note: The above remarks were provided by Homer Hanna High School Principal Blanca Lambarri and Brownsville philanthropist Joe Medrano at a recent Hanna High School board meeting.

Editor’s Note: Click here to watch a recent Rio Grande Guardian video interview with Blanca Lambarri, Joe Medrano, and RGV Philanthropic Foundation Executive Director Diane Milliken-Garza.

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