The Long Reach of Generosity

On Monday mornings, long before students start filing into school for their first class of the day, Erick Soto-Martinez is already hard at work. The stack of calculus homework and varsity football practice can wait as he and his mom drive to Davenport to sell food and supplies to farm workers. Needing a stable source of income during the pandemic, Erick, his brother, and his mom started selling directly to farm workers along the highway. “I was 12 when we started, and honestly, I just wanted to go outside, do my homework, and play,” recalls Erick. But soon, he saw how much the business helped his mom during increasingly hard times, and he was glad to pitch in.

Six years later, Erick’s family truck has become a staple in Davenport. He says that working with his mom throughout middle and high school taught him how to better manage his time and responsibilities. Now, graduating from Santa Cruz High School, he is eager to dive into Santa Clara University with support from the Community Foundation’s R.H. Beel Memorial Scholarship.

Legacy in Motion

At the Community Foundation’s inaugural scholarship celebration, one moment captured the heart of the evening. A continuation of a story that began decades ago and is still unfolding today with Erick.

Ralph “Boots” Beel moved to Santa Cruz with his family 100 years ago and was forced to drop out of Santa Cruz High to work full-time to help his struggling family. He went on to have a successful career though he always regretted not earning a high school diploma. After he died in 1984, Boots’ family worked with the Community Foundation to establish a scholarship in his honor—helping future students not only attain a high school diploma but attend college.

A young Santa Cruzan named Kali Campbell was one of the first 10 students to receive a R.H. Beel Memorial Scholarship award. Last month, the Foundation welcomed her back for the first time in 30 years. Now a teacher and mentor, Kali was there to honor one of her own students, Erick Soto Martinez, as a recipient of the same scholarship that once helped change the course of her life.

In 1998, with the support from the Beel Scholarship and other funding she received, Kali attended UC Davis and graduated debt-free with a degree in chemical engineering. Kali built a successful career as a research and development engineer, working at companies including Hewlett-Packard. But after 10 years in industry, Kali made a deliberate choice to return home to Santa Cruz. It was here that she transitioned into teaching, joining her alma mater, Santa Cruz High School, as a mathematics teacher.

A Path Forward

Kali first met Erick in her Trigonometry class and continued working with him through AP Calculus in his senior year, where he was one of the few students in the whole school to take the college level course. Erick says that his motto for pursuing complex mathematical challenges is, “just get it done.”

Kali said that it’s not only Erick’s academic strength that defines him, but that he always shows up for others. “Eric works incredibly hard and also just helps all his classmates. His communication skills are incredibly important because, as an engineer, you need to have patience and the ability to work with others. Between his work ethic and his support of others, he’s going to excel in any job.”

“Admittedly,” Kali laughs, “Erick rarely turned in his homework.” But Kali understood that he was balancing three jobs and multiple advanced placement courses. Kali’s class is set up primarily for group work, where students work collaboratively on math together; “this was enough for him to master the content without more individual practice at home,” Kali explained.

Erick says, “Ms. Campbell would always be super understanding with my missing homework. She knew where I was coming from. I always had work over the weekends and after school, and she was unconditionally supportive, and she even let me turn in extra credit. The relationship we built, like student and teacher, was everything to me. She was one of the greatest teachers I've had.”

As a future engineering major, Erick explains that his gravitation towards mathematics was from his love of solving problems and accepting challenges that life brings. He realized, “I knew even at a young age that I had to be stronger than most kids and work harder and with more intention than my peers. I had a plan to try to make it somewhere after high school; I'd seen where not studying leaves you.”

Generosity Across Generations

As an endowed fund at the Foundation, the Beel Scholarship was created with the intention of giving not just once but lasting for generations. Erick says, “Paying for tuition has been the biggest obstacle my family has faced during our decision-making process for pursuing higher education. This scholarship is helping me turn my dream of studying STEM into a reality.”

Header photo: Erick and his mom, Oliva, at the Santa Cruz High graduation ceremony in late May.