Keystone Community Services is proud to announce Xitlali Monroy as the recipient of the 2022 Oneida Scholarship Award!
Xitlali attended school at Highland Senior Park High School and frequently spent her time as a participant at the West 7th Community Center from second grade until her 9th-grade year. When asked what she specifically remembered about the Community Kids program, Xitlali remembered the activities she enjoyed in the program. “I was introduced to and involved in many volunteering opportunities,” Xitlali says. She further says, “Some of the examples of this are food drives, library assistance, and other events organized by the community center and the kids’ program.” With the influence of Community Kids, Xitlali was able to find ways to help her community. She currently is a Citizen Lake Monitor for the MPCA and participates in city park clean-up events.
Programs like Community Kids are great because they offer learning activities that are fun and engaging but challenging in the sense that it allows youth participants to become curious and confident learners. When asked how she felt being involved in Community Kids and if it prepared her for the next step of her journey as she enters college, Xitlali said, “[Community Kids] taught me time management”. Instead of waiting to do her homework at home, Xitlali chose to do her homework while she was participating in Community Kids. Time management is one skill that will for sure follow her throughout her journey at the University of Wisconsin– Madison.
With the help of the Oneida Scholarship, Xitlali will be pursuing a STEM major at the University of Wisconsin– Madison. “I’m going to study genetics and hopefully, that’ll go into more closely genetic engineering,” she says. One of the reasons why Xitlali wanted to pursue a career in genetics is because wanted to inspire Latina girls. “I would like to [show] little girls that Latina women can also thrive in scientific fields,” she says. Although she is nervous about choosing genetics as her major of choice, Xitlali is excited and passionate about learning about this topic.
Keystone Community Services is proud of you, Xitlali, and we cannot wait to see you shine at the University of Wisconsin – Madison!