A scholarship can help one student get to college. Over time, that investment can reach an entire family, and eventually, a community. After more than 40 years of helping Kansas City students attend college, the Hispanic Development Fund (HDF) is seeing those investments multiply.
Jessica Jasso has experienced it firsthand. She received HDF scholarships from 2010 to 2014 while earning her degree in secondary education from Kansas State University, and today, she is pursuing a master’s degree in social work while helping high school students secure HDF scholarships and prepare for college. At her first HDF scholarship celebration, Jessica was living with her older sister after her parents had moved to Mexico. “I saw a room of 500 Latinos who had the same path as me,” she said. “It was like I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t going to go at it alone.”
Today, Jessica serves as the HDF Family College Prep Program senior advisor, one of many former recipients who have found their way back to give back. Her story reflects a broader pattern of impact the Hispanic Development Fund has had across Kansas City, families helping raise scholarship funds, and students who were once the first in their families to attend college now seeing younger relatives follow in their footsteps.
The Hispanic Development Fund was founded in 1983 by the Hall Family Foundation and Kansas City Hispanic community leaders, who helped determine where funding was most needed. “The first thing they did was conduct a community needs assessment,” said John Kearney, HDF executive director. “The number one problem or issue they identified was access to higher education and specifically access to financial aid.” As a result, HDF launched its scholarship program in 1984 with $10,000 divided among 100 students. The program has grown substantially since then; in 2025, HDF awarded $1.1 million to 613 students, 515 of whom were first-generation college students.
HDF scholars have gone on to become doctors, lawyers, and other professionals across Kansas City. “We’re equally as proud of our scholars who might have overcome a lot of adversity and challenges to get to where they are,” John said.
Much of HDF’s scholarship funding now comes from the very community it serves. In 2017, Jessica proposed the Cambio para Cambio fundraising campaign, inspired by a similar effort in Colorado. HDF adopted the idea, beginning with 10 alumni champions who raised just under $6,000 from about 130 donors. The effort later expanded to high schools, with professionals and other supporters providing matching funds. “What we found is that at Guadalupe Centers High School, we out-fundraised all the professionals,” John said. “It was a bit of a light bulb moment.”
That moment revealed something HDF leaders had been overlooking: the philanthropic power of the students, families, and community their programs serve. Cambio para Cambio has since grown to include colleges, businesses, professionals, and HDF alumni, and the increase in funding has been substantial. Last year, 60 fundraising teams participated, including more than 20 high schools and about eight college organizations. With matching contributions, Cambio para Cambio raised $615,000, accounting for more than half of the $1.1 million HDF awarded in scholarships in 2025.
The campaign takes place during Hispanic Heritage Month, giving students and families an opportunity to celebrate by supporting college access in their own communities. Participating high schools benefit as well; funds raised by each school are directed toward scholarships for applicants from that same school, allowing students to help create opportunities for their own classmates.
Yet scholarships address only part of the barriers to college entry. Students must also contend with financial aid and enrollment, challenges HDF addresses through its Family College Prep Program. Full-time bilingual college advisors work alongside counselors and staff in Kansas City high schools, helping seniors through the college admissions process, from applying to colleges and securing scholarships to arranging campus visits and completing the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. Jessica said FAFSA assistance is one of the most important services HDF advisors provide, since many students need federal aid in addition to scholarships. “A lot of students don’t know what it is, and it is a complicated form,” she said.
Advisors also hold bilingual college-advising events for parents. “A lot of our schools and districts just don’t have the personnel to do that or the expertise,” John said. Bilingual advising becomes especially important when parents are sharing sensitive information, including their immigration status. “You really have to gain their trust and build that rapport,” Jessica said.
The six college advisors in HDF’s Family College Prep Program all received HDF scholarships themselves, giving them firsthand knowledge of the program and, in many cases, of the very communities and families they now serve. As a result, HDF has seen gains in FAFSA completion across the schools it serves. John said completion increased across the five Kansas City, Kansas, public high schools last year, with the district surpassing 50 percent completion for the first time. “I always want to shout out and recognize our partners in this work,” John said. “But specifically with FAFSA, that is an initiative and outcome that, yes, our team, I would say, is leading the charge.”
Notably, HDF’s advising is not limited to students at those schools, or to Hispanic students; high schoolers from across the Kansas City area can sign up for free college advising through the organization. As an HDF advisor, Jessica recognizes many of the uncertainties she faced herself when preparing for college, and knows how much of a difference having someone guide the process can make. “If I had had an advisor, I would have been more prepared,” she said. “I think my path would have been a little bit different.”
These days, HDF is preparing for a significant institutional change. After operating as an affiliate fund of the Greater Kansas City Community Foundation, “the organization recently received its own 501(c)(3) status and plans to become fully independent,” John said. Its long-term goal remains focused on education. “We ultimately hope to further close the college attainment gaps that presently exist for Latinos,” John said. “We want to make sure they are achieving the careers that they desire and that are going to provide them and their families with upward mobility.”
Jessica’s relationship with HDF has now spanned more than a decade, and she hopes to grow within the organization; her aspiration is to someday become program director. “The Hispanic Development Fund holds a really special place in my heart because it’s more than a financial contribution,” Jessica said. “It’s like an ‘I believe in you’ being whispered in your ear, and a whole community that is with you and behind you.”
Featured in the October 3, 2026 issue of The Independent.
By Monica V. Reynolds
