For a decade, the Student DREAMers Alliance has prepared Hispanic high school students in South Carolina to lead in their schools, their communities, and across the state. To celebrate the program’s 10-year anniversary, we’re sharing their stories.
In 2016, the first Student DREAMers Alliance cohort from Carolina High School gathered at Furman University.
One school, one group of students, and an idea that the Hispanic Alliance cultivated: that these young people already had everything it took to lead.
They just needed the opportunity, a community that believed in them, and people like you willing to invest in their future.
In Fall 2026, we officially selected the 10th class of the Student DREAMers Alliance.
SDA now reaches over 300 fellows in both Greenville and Charleston, and the Fellows who came first are now showing the next generation what is possible.
None of this happened on its own. It happened because people in this community saw what these students were capable of and kept showing up, year after year.
students placed at 19 colleges & universities
Fellows statewide
as of September 2026
in financial assistance awarded
Years of Empowering Hispanic Leaders in SC
The Fellow videos on this page were produced by Jason Ayers and his team at SlicedTomato Productions. Because of their generosity, we are able to share these stories with you.
Jason, thank you for sharing your time, talent, and expertise with our organization.
South Carolina’s Hispanic population has grown 24 percent since 2020. That’s faster than any other group in the Southeast. Yet the state has never elected a Hispanic American to Congress, and no known Hispanic members serve in the 170-seat state legislature. Latinos hold roughly 5 percent of nonprofit board seats nationally, against a population share that is four times that.
This is not a problem of ambition or effort. Hispanic workers in South Carolina participate in the labor force at rates above the state average. Hispanic families send their children to school and show up in communities that have not always made space for them. The gap is not in participation. It is in who holds influence over the systems that determine how opportunity flows.
SDA exists because that changes when young people are given access to networks, mentorship, and the belief that their voice belongs in the room. The Fellows who have moved through this program are now in college, in careers, and in positions to lead and to bring others with them. That full circle of investment and return is what ten years of this work has built.
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