Nataly Morales Villa named Gilman Alumni Changemaker

Posted: October 9, 2024 by Larry Morton

[Note: Portions of this article are taken from a UNG Newsroom article that originally appeared on Jan 22, 2024 –https://ung.edu/news/articles/2024/01/alumnae-win-gilman-changemaker-award.php]

Class of 2019 Political Science major Nataly Morales Villa is a "Changemaker"!

Nataly, along with her colleague and fellow class of 2019 grad Melissa Silva, are two of only six previous Gilman Scholarship winners from across the country to receive the US State Department's inaugural Gilman Alumni Changemaker Award this past fall.

The newly-instituted award provides a grant of $10,000 to Gilman scholarship alumni who are "creating positive change in their communities." The grant will help enable Nataly and Melissa continue the program they created to help explain the home ownership process to members of the Gainesville Hispanic and immigrant communities. As part of the program, the two women create educational content in Spanish, collaborate with Hispanic-serving organizations and host informational seminars.

Congratulations to Nataly on being singled out from among the over 41,000 past recipients of the U.S. Department of State Benjamin A. Gilman scholarship.