In The Garden with Pat & Cesia

June 2023 // by Michele van Zuiden

In late 2022, The Summit League selected POE -South Bay to be the beneficiary of the proceeds from their 2023 annual Summit League fundraiser. The Summit League event was held on June 1, 2023 at Villa Montalvo and featured Maria Shriver as the guest of honor, and an interview style format with our very own POE Student Scholar Cesia Rangel Espinosa, who graduated from UC Davis in 2021. Cesia recently posted about her participation at the event on her LinkedIn page…

This summer, I had the opportunity to talk about my experience as a Pursuit of Excellence Scholarships recipient at The Summit League’s “A Day in the Garden with Friends” fundraiser hosted at Montalvo Arts Center. Before receiving the Pursuit of Excellence scholarship, I had seriously questioned whether I would be able to afford college. Receiving this scholarship was a dream come true, I will forever be grateful for the immense support that POE provided me throughout my undergraduate career. Hence, when the POE board asked me to speak at this event, I knew that this was something I needed to do.

I want to give a quick shout out to my employer, SV@Home for giving me work flexibility and for encouraging me to participate at this event. A huge thank you to Pat Belotti, who interviewed me! Thank you for helping me prepare for this event and for coming up with such well crafted, insightful questions! There are no words for how much I’ve appreciated your mentorship.

Finally, I’d like to thank Michele van Zuiden ( in photo below) the mentor that POE assigned me that became a great friend. Thank you for helping me grow. I am eternally grateful for your continuous support.

There were over 400 people at this event who learned about Cesia’s story and how POE -South Bay was able to help her achieve her dream of graduating from college. The day was a big success and raised over $225,000 for POE -South Bay, allowing us to partner our program with a new high school in the South Bay – Independence High School in San Jose. In addition to adding more new students, the existing students were able to have their funding increased due to the continued rising cost of college.