Remembering Aaron

Foundation Honors Memory of La Feria Alumnus with Scholarship

by Gene Castillo

In today’s social atmosphere many charities have resulted to gimmicks or catchy advertising to attract attention to their causes. Right now the most popular are the cold bucket challenges on YouTube for ALS (Lou Gehrig’s disease) and of course the pink ribbon cancer donation drive that you see on every sports event with their pink gloves, pink towels, pink socks, bandannas, etc. on every player, coach, referee, and playing surface. These are honorable charities that rely on the media to gather as much attention to their causes as possible. I applaud their efforts and congratulate them on their success.

However, here locally, we have an honorable charity of our own. It is called “The Aaron Vincent Juarez Scholarship Foundation”.

It was founded in 2013 by Nora & Fabian Juarez in remembrance of their son, a young man who graduated from our La Feria schools and dedicated his life to becoming a doctor. Mrs. Juarez is a long time teacher at Dominguez elementary and Mr. Juarez is a respiratory therapist. Tragically Aaron’s life was cut short due to the irresponsible act of a career criminal on June 1, 2013 in Corpus Christi, Texas (Google it).

Aaron did nothing but represent this community with the utmost honor and dignity that would have made any parent and any school district or town proud. He was honored of where he came from and often credited this town as well as his family for his successes. He left many friends and relatives with anguish and pain when his life was taken from them.

During his college years personal heartbreaks came to his family. His maternal grandmother died after a long battle with cancer. A few months later, his aunt, also died from a long battle with cancer and his grandfather is now gravely ill. Despite all these personal tragedies he and his family remained strong in their faith. He held two jobs in the Corpus Christi area (Kingsville Clinic & Portland Urgent Care Center) working as a physician’s assistant and was on his way to become a doctor specializing in family practice.

This foundation gives well deserving graduates of La Feria a donation to begin their education and hopefully ease some of the burdens they might have while beginning a new chapter in their lives.

I am donating $100 to this foundation and I am challenging administrators, teachers, aides, school board members, winter visitors and all members of the La Feria school district and anyone else to please contribute whatever they can to support this admirable organization.

For donation information please call 956-792-9894.