Today we’d like to introduce you to Renato de los Santos.
Renato, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
Born in Brownsville, Texas to the 8th generation of de los Santos living in South Texas, I moved with my family to Corpus Christi at the age of six and lived there until my departure to attend St. Mary’s University of San Antonio. Upon graduating from St. Mary’s University in 1980 I attended the Baylor College of Medicine where I got involved in student organizations that were designed to deal with issues of inequity and discrimination.
After two years at Baylor, I took a year off to travel the world and get a sense of how best to provide leadership in this area and after traveling in Europe, the Middle East and Pakistan, I resolved that while our system was not perfect, that we had a system that would require considerable sacrifice but that we could also see considerable gains in terms of opportunity for low=income people in general and ethnic, racial and sexual-orientation minorities in specific.
Upon my return to Texas I resolved to dedicate my life to being part of this nations struggle to create equity for all individuals who reside in this nation and reconnected with an organization that had helped me to apply for college admissions, financial aid and scholarships – the LULAC National Educational Service Centers of Corpus Christi. I began work with them as a Student Advisor and within a year and a half, I was appointed the Center Director. I remained in this position for nine years until 1993. I earned a Masters in Counseling at the Texas A&M University of Corpus Christi in 1990, and then made the decision to leave Corpus Christi to pursue a doctorate in Counseling at the University of North Texas at Denton.
At the UNT-Denton, I worked several years at the University Counseling Center as well as working as a Counselor/Student Advisor at the Texas Academy of Mathematics and Science (TAMS). These opportunities allowed me to work with some of the most academically gifted students in the state, and helped me to learn from their successes.
In 1998, I was approached by Mr. Hector Flores and Mr. Richard Roybal to consider working with them to establish the new LNESC-Dallas, that would replicate some of the programming at the LNESC-Corpus Christi and then also develop our own unique community specific programming. After significant consideration, I decided to accept their challenge of starting this program from scratch. The initial years were often very stressful in that we were building a program of services with little to no staff. I was the Director and the Janitor, I cut the grass and worked with our Advisory Board to develop our program structure.
Today we have three full time staffers, soon to double to six full time staffers and we have six part-time faculty and advisors. We are operating out of our own building and are growing our program and community recognition. It has been a lot of hard work but I am pleased that we are seeing our alumni going into professional and community leadership positions.
We have set the stage to really begin making significant contributions and impact.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The road has never been smooth. I have learned over the years to trust the process and that if we keep a focus on serving our students and clients, that we will find a way to continue delivering our core services. I have learned that when a door closes, that a new one will open slightly down the road.
Over the years, we have found ourselves in dire straits but our community has responded with support to tide us over, and with our grant writing team we have secured the continuing funding that is required to continue our operation. Over the years we learned that the biggest challenges would include:
1. Not having the resources and funding that we needed to complete our goals and objectives. We have partially addressed this by establishing partnerships and collaborative relationships with area educational institutions to utilize classroom and other facilities.
2. Being able to focus our Board Members and Staff on meeting established programmatic objectives while also being responsive to stakeholders’ issues such as unresolved immigration, housing and other national issues.
While these issues are of importance to our community they do not usually impact our funded program objectives.
3. Securing the community recognition for our programs that have provided educational and leadership development programs at no cost to the local tax payer. Beyond the direct educational issues that LNESC is focused on.
Please tell us about LULAC National Educational Service Center of Dallas.
LNESC is best known for assisting low-income, “first-generation-in-college” students to enroll at and graduate from a college or university of their choice. While we focus on campuses with a majority of Latino students, LNESC’s programs are all open to students of any ethnic, racial, religious, sexual orientation and ability and has proudly assisted thousands of students in North Texas to enroll at a college of university of their choice. As an educational nonprofit, we provide support to our participants to obtain financial aid and scholarship awards that are needed to fund their higher education.
We are proud that LNESC has survived in a very competitive market for nearly twenty years and that we have assisted thousands of students to achieve their goals. With the election of Victoria Neave to the position of Texas State Representative, we see one of our highest profile alumnus ascend to a high profile office. We anticipate that she will be the first of a cohort of young adults who will make their mark in the world of business, education and politics. We are proud of this work and we believe that this commitment to the development of servant community leaders sets us apart from others in our field.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
It is hard to single out a favorite memory from childhood. I would have to choose from among a variety of family vacations. We often traveled across the country to visit relatives in Arizona, Ohio or Mexico and each brought wonder and awes. My family loved to travel together, and we always tried to stop and soak in the wonders of rivers, or massive broad rivers such as the Mississippi. We traveled through the deserts of Arizona, and most especially spent weekends on the beaches of South Texas. These family times and those Christmases together are my favorite memories.
Contact Info:
- Address: LULAC National Educational Service Center of Dallas
345 S. Edgefield Avenue,
Dallas, TX 75208 - Website: https://www.LNESC.org/dallas-tx
- Phone: (214) 943-2528
- Email: RSantos@LULAC.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/LNESCDallas/
- Twitter: @RaydelosSantos2
SAMSUNG
OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
Image Credit:
All images are property of LNESC and taken with agency equipment by agency staff. We have permission to use all group photos selected in this album and they depict a variety of groups and activities sponsored by the LNESC.
Getting in touch: VoyageDallas is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
