In 2000, the Alabama Affordable Housing Association (AAHA) created a scholarship program for residents of member-owned apartment properties in Alabama. The scholarship funds are donated by the owners, contractors, architects, accountants, property management companies, investors, lenders, developers, and various vendors that make up AAHA’s membership as well as other non-member individuals. Since its inception, the AAHA resident scholarship fund has awarded more than $500,000 in scholarships.
Venezuela-born Dana Quintero Rodriguez is in her first year at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, thanks in part to her AAHA scholarship funds.
“Any scholarship is very helpful because, as many people know, college tuition is very expensive. I wouldn’t be able to go to this school if not for outside scholarships, said Dana. “This is one more organization that decided to help me go to my dream school and do what I want to do.”
An only child, Dana immigrated to the U.S. with her parents when she was very young. “By the time I was born, there was a political movement going on that wasn’t that bad then, but my parents foresaw it was going to get worse,” she said. “So they applied for political asylum, and we came to the U.S.”
A 2017 honor graduate of Baker High School in Mobile, Dana is majoring in Biomedical Sciences on the pre-med track. Her goal is to pursue a medical degree and specialize in immunology.
Such big aspirations would only have been possible with financial assistance, so the manager of Cottage Hill Pointe and her mother encouraged her to apply for the resident scholarship program. In addition to the scholarship funds awarded by AAHA, Dana was named a 2017 recipient of a Scholarship Foundation scholarship from the national Council for Affordable and Rural Housing. The CARH scholarship provides Dana an additional $1,500 per semester for up to four years.
For more information about the resident scholarship program, please contact Arrice Faught, AAHA’s executive director at [email protected] or 205.758.1158.