ROTC Member Receives a $1000 Grant for the Program

ROTC has the core values of being an honest citizen and not being a burden to society, all things sophomore Jesse Barrera loves about being in the program. His love and dedication earned the East ROTC a $1,000 grant six weeks ago.

The grant came from Barrera’s grandmother’s American Legion group out of Rahway, New Jersey. According to Barrera, the American Legion donates money to kids who are on the “right track” and want to do something with their life. After a member of the group took a vacation to Kansas City to interview Barrera about ROTC and his future plans the money was sent to the school.

“[The Legion] always asked about me and my brother and what we were doing,” said Barrera. “[my grandma] told him that I was in ROTC and they liked the idea so they donated money to us.”

Sheldon Vazquez, the ROTC teacher, has been very pleased with Barrera and the kind of young man he has become. According to Vazquez, the whole Barrera family is dedicated to the military and involved in many veterans’ activities.

According to Vazquez the money received from the grant will go towards the competitions that the drill team travels to. They have traveled as far away as New Mexico for higher level competing at the national level. The competitions consist of two to four events ranging from color guard, the handling of the flags, to armed exhibition, when they spin the rifles.

The ROTC isn’t funded by either the schools or the Navy so all of their budget must come from fundraising and the families contributing. ROTC has many fundraisers including a pancake breakfast, selling entertainment books and this year raising money at the air show downtown. The money they raise goes toward paying for buses for local competitions and potentially the trip to nationals.

“With the economy being as it we have some students whose families are struggling and we can use this money to lighten the burden on them,” said Vazquez.

Nationwide ROTC has approximately 600 high schools participating and half of those students go into the military directly out of high school, and some go through college then join the armed forces. As for Barrera, he plans on the later of those by attending the Virginia Military Institute and then possibly joining the Navy.

“The core foundations of ROTC are to teach a young person how to be a good American citizen,” said Vazquez. “We are extremely pleased with Jesse; he is a very fine young man and is a good example of all that ROTC is about.”