KPRC 2 and American Furniture Warehouse are surprising 20 deserving high school seniors with scholarships in 2022. All students selected for scholarships have been nominated by their high schools.
The tenth $2,500 scholarship winner of the year is David Dzul, who will graduate from Houston ISD’s DeBakey High School for Health Professions.
Dzul has been accepted to the University of Virginia, where he plans to study neuroscience as well as political and social thought.
Throughout high school, Dzul has dedicated time to community and political engagement. He’s held a Mi Familia Vota fellowship, completed a Rice University Youth Civic Engagement Research and Advocacy Internship and Harvard International Socioeconomic Laboratory Fellowship, and served on the Mayor’s Youth Council.
In the process of helping register voters through Mi Familia Vota, Dzul wrote he discovered that many in the Hispanic community remained disengaged.
“They couldn’t be when every policy within city government ordinances was in English. A metamorphosis was needed and my unique role in the Mayor’s Youth Council committed me to the mission of providing a Service Above Self. Working underneath At-Large City Council members, I was not bound to view district ordinances but city-wide ones, and I wasted no time translating them into Spanish,” Dzul wrote in his scholarship essay.
“As I pursue college, my passion in changing the world was not changed nor has my compassion faltered. I seek a college education to further my depth in policy knowledge so I can best help communities like my own...” Dzul wrote.
“... I can go into marginalized communities and civically engage community members. I can show regular community members just how powerful their voice AND their vote can be within local democracy and daily activities.”
You can see Dzul’s scholarship surprise in the video player at the top of this article.