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Alumni News | 11/04/2022
By: Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation

October 2022 Connections

Local Receptions

We loved visiting Coke Scholars in Durham, Chicago, and New York!

More than 30 Coca-Cola Scholars and friends from the Durham Coca-Cola Bottling Company joined the CCSF team in Durham in early October.
Over 30 Scholars joined the CCSF team and former CCSF President J. Mark Davis at Parson’s restaurant in Chicago.
75 Coca-Cola Scholars joined CCSF and our friends at Liberty Coca-Cola Beverages for a fun reception at the New York Liberty office.
While in town, Carolyn Norton (CCSF) visited with Ashley Chang (2006) and her son Ryan and spent Halloween night with Ben Anders (2007), his wife Alison, and their son Maxwell.
Carolyn and Ericia Ward from CCSF also joined Gabriella Carter (2018) and Hope Arcuri (2014) for lunch at Hudson Yards while in New York.
Once they found out that Jason Pate (2005) was in NYC for work, Jane Hopkins and Carolyn stopped by the Plaid offices for a quick visit.

Alumni Advisory Board Retreat

All 14 members of the Alumni Advisory Board came together for the first time in 3 years for a retreat in Atlanta. In less than two days, they planned programming and development opportunities for the coming year and filmed a fun announcement about the 2023 Coca-Cola Scholars Leadership Summit (stay tuned!).

The Alumni Advisory Board (AAB) at their retreat.

Slices for Scholars

Coke Scholars on campus connect over pizza and Coke.

59 Scholars got together at Stanford University!

Attendees included: Vaibhavi Shah, Metztli Carbajal, Janelle Chavez, Jackie Liu, Kathleen Schwind, Abbie Maemoto, Annie Ostojic, America Sophia George, Enrique Flores, Micheal Brown, Arundathi Nair, Anne Liang, Emily Tianshi, William Li, Faith Ajanaku, Rachel Clinton, Peter Alisky, Sriya Mantena, Agnes Liang, Tarini Mutreja, Melody Chang, Riya Ranjan, Makenna Turner, Savitha Srinivasan, Grace Jin, Megan Loh, Ishan Khare, Priscilla Guo, Ameya Jadhav, Divya Nagaraj, Catherine Xiang, Kristine Pashin, Annie Zhu, Jesus Ballesteros, Rana Banankhah, Morgan Moreno, Varsha Saravanan, Daniela Gomez, Kyle Lambert, Maaz Usmani, Emma Casey, Kyla Guru, Salma Kamni, Mahathi Mangipudi, Alexandra Collins, Jayendra Chauhan, Edward Adams, Alice Guo, Victoria Ren, Jui Khankari, Logan Lau, Melanie Zhou, Akshana Dassanaike-Perera, Nabikshya Rayamajhi, Abel Dagne, Stanley Rozenblit, Samantha Reising, Joel Kiernan, Milo Golding, and Aditya Bora.
Krish Shah (2021) and Urvi Gupta (2017) met up at Case Western Reserve University.
Chloe Decker (2021), Ellie Reyna (2022), Vijay Anne (2020), Diya Daruka (2022), Adom Appiah (2022), Miran Bhima (2022), Sinai Ruan, Luke Turkovich (2019), Vishal Jammulapati (2021), and Shania Khoo (2018) got together for a Slices for Scholars event at Duke University.

Coca-Cola Connections

Kate Sullivan (1994) and Sneha Dave (2016) were featured at The Coca-Cola Company’s Community Engagement Summit, a gathering of 300+ community partners and stakeholders.

Kate, creator and host of To Dine For With Kate Sullivan, moderated a panel “Moving at the Speed of Opportunity,” which featured fellow Scholar Sneha, founder and executive director of Generation Patient, and more young leaders making an impact in the world.

Scholar Meet Ups

Christy Caruso Johnston (2002), her husband, and four “future Scholars” met up with Carolyn Norton (CCSF) when they were passing through Atlanta. Christy interned for CCSF 20 years ago!
Hope Arcuri (2014) got married and several 2014 Coke Scholars were also in attendance – Taylor Patterson was a bridesmaid, and Sophie Wix and Marissa Farbman attended. Hope’s mom surprised them with special Coke bottles that they used to toast the marriage.

Podcast

The SIP, The Coke Scholars Ignite Podcast, is back for season 3! The SIP shares a taste of the Coke Scholars around the world who are igniting positive change.

In the fifth episode of The SIP, we meet Pegah, Star, and Brandon – 3 Coke Scholars leading positive change in education:

  • Pegah Taylor (2003) – Managing Director of Leadership Development, KIPP Texas Public Schools
  • Star Wallin (2002) – CEO and Founder, Bell Creek Consulting
  • Brandon Cardet-Hernandez (2003) – Executive Director, Ivy Street School
    Even in the face of immense hurdles, they are optimistic about the future and innovation in the field.

The trio discuss learning beyond remediation and through opportunity, partnering with community organizations to enhance student support, making equity more than just a buzz word at both a systems level and for individuals, and so much more.

The episode is introduced by Aisha Chebbi (2020).

Watch a video of Pegah, Star, and Brandon recording this episode here with captions.

In episode 6, we learn from branding experts, innovative content creators, and Coke Scholars Safiya, Tiffany, Kaiti, and Ben:

The panel shares their favorite personal brands, how to build your brand in a way that is polished yet authentic, and what makes for great digital content (and how to get over the fear of creating it, too). They also discuss their unique journeys in brand building and some favorite tools to get it all done.

The episode is introduced by Aisha Chebbi (2020).

Watch a video of Safiya, Tiffany, Kaiti, and Ben recording this episode here with captions.

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