The League of United Latin American Citizens announced at its 85th Convention in New York on Friday the 10 councils selected as beneficiaries of the Ford Driving Dreams through Education grants. The grants are given to councils who have created and implemented curricula and programs to help keep young Latinos in high school.

"LULAC believes every child deserves access to a high quality education in order to be motivated and to have a firm foundation in our society," LULAC Executive Director Brent Wilkes said. "We are grateful for the longstanding partnership with Ford Motor Company and Time Warner Cable, two entities that share our values of nurturing our youth."

The 10 winning councils receive $20,000 grants and awardees were from the following states: California, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, New York, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

As this year's convention was in New York, representatives from the Queens New York LULAC Council #23047 attended the press conference joined by two students who will benefit from the program.

"The program teaches you how to improve your grades when you go to high school and gives you motivation about going up to college, studying and getting your degree, and being someone in the world," Matthew Martinez told Latin Post at the press conference.  

Martinez attends Pan American High School in Corona, Queens, and out of all the subjects he studies, he likes Living Environment the most, where he learns about the human body, bacteria and viruses. He wants to be a high-tech engineer for the military.

"Being here is very inspiring for me," said Efrian Martinez, a 15-year-old Dominican, who has lived in Queens for the past two years and attends the same school at Matthew Martinez. He likes learning history, science and math. He is the 10th grade president and hopes to become the 11th grade president. He was one of the 50 students selected to attend LULAC's Emerging Lation Leadership conference in Washington, D.C., in February from a selection of 500 students.

"I want to do a major in political science, and then study law," Martinez said. "And I want to study law because I have seen people get abused by the authorities. I want to know the law, and I want to know my legal standing.'