Eight Students, One School Tapped For ARTE Scholarships

Natalie Quiroz-Duran and Chaplain, a Connecticut State Police Comfort K9 Dog. Contributed Photo. 

Natalie Quiroz-Duran got her first taste of teaching when she stepped into ARTE’s Saturday Academy, picked up her clarinet, and began to instruct students who were in middle and elementary school. Now, the organization that sparked her interest is helping her get through college. 

This fall, Quiroz-Duran is one of nine scholarship recipients through ARTE, Inc., the Fair Haven-based arts and education incubator that has been running the scholarship program since 2004. This year, recipients include law students, budding cinematographers, aspiring psychologists and nurses, and undeclared college freshmen. Fair Haven School, the only school to receive an award, will use the funds toward a Hispanic Heritage Month celebration later this month.  

It brings the total that ARTE has awarded to $108,000. This year, awardees include University of Connecticut law student Christian Aviles, UConn undergraduates Linda Torres and Kaleb Alvarez Diaz, Pace University junior Daniela Santiago, Southern Connecticut State University (SCSU) students Quiroz-Duran and Carla Janela Garzon Yumbla, Amherst College sophomore Yareli Calderon Romero, University of New Haven student Yamilett Hernandez.

“I think it's really important,” said Co-Founder Dave Greco, who runs the organization with his partner Daniel (Danny) Diaz. “There are so many kids, especially in an urban environment, that don't have exposure to it [a higher education], or don't know what's available to them. It's difficult for kids to navigate into college.” The scholarships are there to make it a little easier. 

He added that the scholarship program has grown consistently since it began in 2004, the same year the two launched ARTE in Fair Haven. In the beginning, “we really had no money,” and some of the scholarships came from his and Diaz’ own pockets. Now, ARTE is able to fundraise for the scholarships, which award between $800 and $1,000 per student. For Greco, it’s part of building a path to college for young people who want it, but might not believe it’s for them. 

Last week, several of the organization’s recipients said they are grateful for both the award and the recognition from ARTE, Inc. A freshman at SCSU, Quiroz-Duran became involved in ARTE three years ago, when she heard that its weekly Saturday Academy needed teachers. 

At the time, she was a student at Wilbur Cross High School, and had been playing the clarinet for six years. ARTE gave her a music class to teach. If she needed backup, there were New Haven Public Schools teachers waiting in the wings. 

It was there that she first fell in love with teaching, she said. She was equally grateful for an educational engine that celebrated her Mexican roots, which stretch to Tlaxcala in one direction and Mexico City in the other. While her major is still undecided, she said she is considering early childhood and elementary education. 

“Even before senior year, I would search and search for scholarships,” she said. “I would never hear back. I just want to give thanks to ARTE for giving students of color a shot.” 

Contributed Photo.

That’s also true for Aviles, a graduate student at the University of Connecticut’s School of Law and the full-time director of college access and persistence at Squash Haven. Born and raised in Los Angeles’ Boyle Heights neighborhood, Aviles grew up with a single mom, two brothers, and a tight-knit community of neighbors and teachers that propelled him to college. He brings that sense of community into everything he does, he said in a phone call last week. 

“My mother always said, ‘If we have enough for us, we should always give [some] to someone else,’” he recalled. “When I decided to go to college, I decided to help my community in the way that they helped me.” 

After studying at Amherst College, he moved to New Haven, where he has lived for the past seven years. Initially, Aviles’ primary interest was education, which led him to Squash Haven. Then he realized that even a transformative educator could work around the clock, and still run up against a system that failed poor students, particularly poor students of color. He saw that many of the “fixes” he helped students and families with were simply band-aids, he said. 

“What I found was , when we help a family with one of those things, that's great. But then the next year, another family might come with the same issue,” he said. “I started thinking about eliminating institutional barriers and changing systems.”

Two years ago, he was accepted into Yale University’s inaugural “Access to Law” cohort, a year-long program that gives students the tools to get into and succeed at law school. When he completed the program and began to apply to school, ARTE’s scholarship immediately came to mind. Getting it felt especially sweet this year, he added; Squash Haven alum Yareli Calderon Romero is also a recipient, and he was one of her recommenders. She is attending Amherst, his alma mater.  

“I'm just incredibly grateful to Dave and to ARTE,” he said, adding that he sees the work ARTE does as transformative for Latinx youth. “I hope to repay that in several ways.”

Santiago earlier this month, at a fundraiser she and fellow students organized to raise money for victims of Hurricane Fiona. Contributed Photo.

A junior at Pace University, Daniela Santiago also described herself as grateful for both the scholarship and the encouragement she feels like she’s getting from people with her lived experience. Growing up, Santiago saw herself reflected at home, in her huge, proudly Nuyorcian family in Middlesex County. But that often stopped when she turned to popular culture or school, where very few people looked like she did. 

“Most little girls were watching Disney movies,” she said. The princesses in the movies had big, soft blue eyes, straight hair and tiny waists (the first Latina Disney Princess, Elena of Avalor, didn’t arrive on the scene until 2016). “I definitely didn’t see myself.” 

It took time to transform into the Latina she is now, she said. For years, she straightened her thick, curly hair before heading to school. It took a friend pulling out her ponytail for her to realize that it was a gift, and not something to be ashamed of. By high school, she was running the Minority Student Coalition, a precursor to her  advocacy for Latino students on campus at Pace. There, she is the President of the Latin American Students’ Organization and a student assistant at the Office of Multicultural Affairs. 

So when she met Diaz at a tag sale in his front yard earlier this year, she was excited to hear about the work that ARTE does. “We got to talking,” and he encouraged her to apply for the scholarship program. At Pace, she is studying digital cinema and film. 

“It means a lot to be chosen, having met Daniel and the people from ARTE,” she said. “Being chosen for this scholarship is funding not only my education but also funding my future”

Like Quiroz-Duran, some of the recipients have woven ARTE into their own lives for years. For Alvarez Diaz, a graduate of Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School, it’s one of the ways he’s staying connected to a place that has been his educational home for years. 

A freshman at the University of Connecticut, Alvarez Diaz started at ARTE several years ago, before the pandemic pushed its weekly Saturday arts academy online. When Covid-19 hit, he stayed involved with the organization, entering its “copycat” art contest and braving the online pivot to help teach on weekends. 

Like many other incoming college freshmen, he worried about the cost of college, working for both ARTE and McDonalds in his final summer at home. “They’re basically family,” he said of Greco and Diaz—and so he was thrilled to get the scholarship. He added that the sticker shock still hasn’t worn off: a calculator for one of his classes was recently $200.  

“Every penny does count,” he said. 

Learn more about ARTE, Inc. here.