Continental Airlines ‘Volando al Futuro/Flying toward the Future’.

Three students from Los Angeles-area high schools are among students from schools in Houston, New York, San Antonio, Miami, Chicago and Washington, D.C., who will receive airline tickets to visit universities with their parents, through a collaboration between Continental Airlines and Upward Bound called “Volando al Futuro/Flying toward the Future.” Continental provides the tickets to Hispanic Upward Bound participants to enable them to evaluate whether they want to attend college away from home.

Rocío Hernández, Maricela Delgadillo and Wendy López, participants in the LINC TELACU Upward Bound program in Los Angeles, have received Continental tickets to visit universities they plan to attend in fall 2004. Hernández, 17, a graduate of Theodore Roosevelt High School, will visit Brown University in Providence, R.I. She plans to study social sciences and wants to be a teacher. Delgadillo, 18, a graduate of Huntington Park High School, has been accepted to MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She plans to study engineering. López, 18, a graduate of James Garfield High School, will study business administration at the University of California at Berkeley.

“Going far away from home to college can be scary and expensive,” Hernández said. “Thanks to this opportunity from Continental, I will have the opportunity to visit the college campus before I enroll and my family and I will feel more comfortable about my decision.”

“We appreciate Continental Airlines’ giving our students and their families the opportunity to gain a greater level of confidence about this new journey in their lives – a college education,” said David C. Lizárraga, TELACU President and CEO.
In September 2002, Continental began its “Volando al Futuro” partnership with Upward Bound, a project of the federal government’s TRIO program designed to prepare low-income first-generation college-bound students for the college experience. Ticket recipients must be Upward Bound participants; each individual Upward Bound program handles its own application and selection requirements.

“We are pleased to help out these Upward Bound students so they can broaden their world of educational opportunities,” said María Cristina Osorio, Manager of Public Relations, Latin America, Continental Airlines.
Continental Airlines is the second-largest airline to Latin America and the Caribbean, offering service to 62 destinations in 24 countries in the region.