Motivative, the response

Anonymous writes after reading Motivative:

I must correct you here TP. The folks from the Yakima Nation Tribal College are indigenous people. THEY AREN'T THE FOREIGNERS!!! WE ARE!!! DUH!!!

TPgal said:
The kids that won in our room were the crew from the Heritage University from the Yakima Nation Tribal College. I knew it, foreigners get all the breaks.

TP Gal Responds: I am fully aware that the students who attend the Heritage College are traditionally native people - I though for sure that it was somewhat obvious that I was trying to be funny.

I apologize if my attempt at satire was lost on you. (Satire is where you say something so obviously wrong that it's funny. See Stephen Colbert as an example.)

In reality, the day spent with these kids is very inspiring; it is amazing what they are able to do. The team from HU deserved to win, and I was delighted to be able to hear their presentation. They are mostly first generation high school grads and college students and they've done remarkable research regarding the economic condition of the Yakima Valley and have tailored their program to serve the community.

They recognize that the Hispanic population of the Yakima Valley area is exploding and have developed classes to teach business owners not only Spanish language but cultural facts that will help them better relate to this market segment.

They found that because the population of the YV has almost twice the unemployment rate of the rest of the state and the median income is remarkably less than in other areas of the state that there was a need to distribute information about high interest credit cards and short term pay-day loans to help educate about the true high costs of these items.

They also partnered with a club in Mexico and helped a village of families who had been subsistence farming to form a co-op and grow organic vegetables and raise chickens. By teaching them basic business and economic skills this co-op now sells their goods to restaurants in a neighboring city. The HU outreach has significantly impacted the lives of these families.

Good luck to the team from Yakima! Do the state proud!

(As an aside, it turns out that almost 40% of the students at the college are of Hispanic ethnicity and most are first generation Americans. I didn't highlight this fact in my original post because I wanted to make a joke. However, I think if anyone is going help turn around the economic crap-hole that the Yakima Valley finds itself in these days it's these kids. I am humbled by their efforts. See now you've learned something, but it probably wasn't as fun as the first post.)