Taco Bell Foundation blesses students who have side hustles with scholarships
The Taco Bell Foundation wants college students to live more and spend less on their expensive college tuitions. To prove it, the woke fast food chain has awarded 300 students and employees $3 million total in Live Más Scholarships.
The scholarships ranged from $5,000 to $25,000 per student. That’s a lot of cash. Yet still very worth it as the Taco Bell Foundation recognizes how unaffordable college really is. The fast-food chain received over 8,000 scholarship applications where the average amount requested was more than $19,000 each.
Taco Bell is hoping to shift culture and is not only focusing on the “perfect student,” but are investing in tomorrow’s leaders. Shout out to the know-it-alls who have magically aced every test and managed to score 2350 on their SATs, but this scholarship give away was also for students who have a side hustle.
Like Dhruv Patel who designed a device that might be able to detect Alzheimer’s earlier or Zaniya Lewis who started the Yes She Can campaign, inspired by Michelle Obama, which advocates for girls in underserved communities who have overcome adversity.
https://youtu.be/FDckR5YLGXg
Executive Director of the Taco Bell Foundation, Tina Nguyen, understands that there is more to a student’s education than just cutting a check. She expressed the need to provide students with real-world opportunities. Nguyen said,
“We recognize that college affordability is a major issue facing our nation, so we’re excited to increase the number and size of scholarships this year, but also recognize that the Live Más Scholarship program needs to be more than just a check for our students to be successful… That’s why we’ve been providing students with real-world opportunities to put their passions into action since day one, and why we’re so excited to work with MENTOR to offer our Live Más scholars important support and experiences outside the classroom.”
Through the Taco Bell partnership with MENTOR, Live Más Scholarship recipients in LA, Philly, and Minneapolis will undergo three workshops. The workshops are aimed at helping the recipients develop personal and professional skills, strengthening their confidence, and giving them the ability to identify and secure mentors.
Why not take a chance and apply? All it takes is two minutes. The application only requires the submission of a two-minute video where applicants between the ages of 16 and 24 can share what they love to do.
It could be anything. If you want to be a hip-hop superstar who wants to inspire the world through your music, a director looking capture the world on film, or even an engineer looking for an alternative source of fuel, all you have to do is passionately express that.
Don’t sleep. You could’ve been one of the 100 new applicants who got a piece of the $1 million money pot. Plus, if you’ve won once there’s another chance you could win again. There’s nothing better than winning twice as $1.5 million was awarded to 150 previous recipients.
If you are a Taco Bell employee you’d be dumb not to apply. This year $500,000 was awarded to 50 Taco Bell restaurant employees.
Heidi Estrada who crochets hats for premature babies in NICU was just surprised in front of her high school class with a $25K scholarship and the Taco Truck. She will be the first person in her family to go to college.
The scholarship handouts are far from over as the Taco Bell Foundation looks to hand out $10 million by 2022. Change the game today youngins, and just know that Taco Bell will always hold you down. I’m not just talking about chalupas either.