Longtime Fountain Valley residents Felix and Kathy Rocha have established a nonprofit benefit corporation to financially assist worthy high school students after they graduate from high school.
This year, the Orange County Education Foundation (OCEF, Inc.) handed out six $10,000 awards to two students from Westminster High, one from University High, two from Pacifica High and from Calvary Preparatory Academy.
The funding for OCEF, Inc. was provided by the late Angelo Madrigal who appointed the Rochas to oversee the distribution of awards each year.
“Angelo and I both went to school in San Antonio, TX,” said Felix, who is a re-tired federal agent with the US Immigration and Nationalization Service. Rocha is also a former Orange County Board of Education district trustee.
Rocha said Madrigal moved to California in 1966. Rocha was drafted in 1967, but he was already in the U.S. Air Force Reserve and served as an investigator at various locations, including Cuba, Calexico, San Clemente and Los Angeles.
“That is where I met Angelo again,” Rocha said. “He owned several businesses in Midway City. We were able to rekindle our friendship.”
Before he died in May 2021, Madrigal appointed Kathy and Felix to “provide scholarships to a few kids who wanted to change their life and go to college,” Rocha said.
To qualify for the awards, a student must meet one or more of the following criteria: be disabled or handicapped; live and attend school in Orange County; be an at-risk student; be a Native American student.
For more information about the scholarship, call Felix and Kathy Rocha at (714) 371-8880.