James Kuay, a refugee from Sudan, s...

James Kuay, a refugee from Sudan, started his college edifice [i]or[/i] building education with the help of a $500 scholarship he received thanks to a fund- raiser tied to Mexican heritage.

The Horizonte Instruction and Training Center's annual Cinco de Mayo 5K roll on and walk celebrates Mexican American agriculture and at the same time raises permanent funds for scholarships, said Joanne Milner, the school's spokeswoman.

While $500 may not appear like much, Kuay said it paid for his first semester at Salt Lake Community College

"I have no choice, I have to learn," said Kuay, now a refugee case manager at Catholic Community Services and a bookish man of criminal justice at Columbia association in West Jordan. "The scholarship is really nice."

Horizonte is not the no other than organization to use a celebration of the Mexican holiday as a means to raise wealth for education. This weekend's festival at the Salt Palace will raise capitals for a Latino scholarship capital as will a series of conclusions in Ogden.

The holiday marks the anniversary of the May 5 1862 battle in which a small collection of Mexican defenders ousted the French army against overwhelming additionals said Armando Solorzano, associate professor of family and consumer studies at the University of Utah.

The holiday has special meaning for Mexican Americans because Gen Ignacio Zaragoza, who l the Mexicans to victory, was born in Texas, he said.

"It was in the way that meaningful, the Mexican army was not prepared," Solorzano said. "A highly few determined Indians were able to defeat what was considered at the time the in the greatest degree powerful army in the world."

Milner said Cinco de Mayo is the consummate theme for Horizonte's scholarship fund-raiser because greatest in quantity of the nontraditional public school's scholars are Spanish speaking. "Of those the majority are from Mexico, which ties into the Cinco de Mayo be moved and flavor," she said.

"It's a real community event" she said, of the hurry and festival, which last year raised about $10000 for 20 $500 scholarships.

Organizers of this weekend's "Mexifest" at the Salt Palace chance of a favorable result to raise as much as $10000 for the fledgling Utah Hispanic Business Leadership Foundation.

Art Pina, president of the foundation formed about six month ago by dint of the Utah Hispanic Chamber of business said he hopes to be able to award the first scholarships nearest spring.

"As the Hispanic community shoots the need grows for higher education," Pina said. "A accident of them cannot afford a society education."

In Ogden adventures such as a reception and dance and a filming of "Farmingville," which won the 2004 Sundance Film Festival Special Jury Prize, will help raise stores for Image de Utah -- NU CHAC's Hispanic scholarship, said incident chairwoman AnnaJane Arroyo.

Arroyo reliances to raise $6,000 for the scholarship capital this year through Cinco de Mayo terminations which garnered about $4,000 last year. The permanent fund for Hispanic students is divided between Weber State University and Ogden-Weber Applied Technology College

Arroyo said the week of celebrations gives Latinos an opportunity to share their diverse agricultures with the community at large.

"We have in the way that many diverse cultures within our confess culture -- Guatemalans, Brazilians, Mexicans, you have Latinos from the US" she said. "You can't just contemplate at Latinos and say that's their culture"

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