What impact do scholarship donations make to students at Colorado School of Public Health (ColoradoSPH)? For MPH candidates Priscilla “Precious” Collins, Orion Zuni, and Peyton Eitemiller, they make all of the difference in the world and, without which, they wouldn’t be earning their Master’s degrees.
Though each is studying on a different campus – Collins is at CU Anschutz, Peyton at UNC in Greeley, and Zuni at CSU in Ft. Collins, they are drawn together by a common purpose: to use their public health degrees to help in their own communities. For Collins that means returning her Ute Mountain Ute tribe after graduation; for Eitemiller, it means working with the Hispanic populations right where she was born and raised in Weld County, Colorado; and for Zuni it means sharing prevention insights with his Isleta Pueblo Indian tribe in central New Mexico.
Collins, who worked with her tribe prior to joining ColoradoSPH, is learning intervention techniques, such as mental health and substance use prevention, in her Population Mental Health and Wellbeing program, which she plans to apply to her work when she returns to southern Colorado.
“Not only am I refining my skills and knowledge in this program, but I now also have accessibility to resources and professionals who have the experience,” she said. “I am working with Coloradans, helping Coloradans.”
For Eitemiller, she is learning more about the health disparities and social determinants of health right in her own backyard, by learning from the Hispanic communities in Weld County. She wants her work to have both a local and global impact. As the recipient of the Hoffman Scholarship, established by Dr. Richard Hoffman, she was able to meet and network with her benefactors and learn more about the impact of their work in the field. This includes the global public health work of Richard and his wife, Molly.
"There are very involved public health advocates...,” she said. “My hopes are attainable, there are people who are doing this, people are doing good in the world."
Zuni hopes to incorporate healthy lifestyle choices in his future work and is studying physical activity and healthy lifestyles.
"I have the opportunity to live a life where I can live healthy and spread positivity,” he said.
Each said that their scholarships enabled them to focus on their coursework, including their practicums and capstones, which are a requirement to graduate.
"It gave me the availability and freedom to not be concerned about paying for school. I don’t really know how I would make ends meet otherwise,” Zuni said.
Make an impact by donating today. https://coloradosph.cuanschutz.edu/giving/funds-causes