Sands renews partnership with NHI to develop leaders in Las Vegas

In 2022, the National Hispanic Institute forged a partnership with Las Vegas Sands, through its Sands Cares program, to bring Las Vegas students to its unique summer leadership program series. 

In 2024 Sands announced it is doubling down on that investment via a three-year renewal of the partnership, allowing NHI to further its positive impact in Nevada’s largest city. 

“We have seen the tremendous impact NHI’s curriculum makes on students, and it strongly aligns with our commitment to building a highly capable and diverse workforce of the future,” said Ron Reese, Sands’ senior vice president of global communications and corporate affairs, in its press release. “Students leave NHI’s programs with increased confidence, new skillsets and a vision for their futures that supersedes their previous belief systems. It is a remarkable experience, and we encourage local students to take the journey.”

The initial grant provided the seed investment for NHI to establish a presence in Las Vegas, plus annual support for student tuition plus organizational expenses. The investment has resulted in nearly 100 Las Vegas students participating in NHI programs over those first three years, with 25 of those returning as volunteers to help coordinate additional programs. 

“Sands has made it possible for us to immerse high-achieving Las Vegas students into our multi-level leadership development training, which progressively prepares them to be successful in the public and private sectors, as well as in their lives as a whole,” Nicole Nieto, executive vice president of NHI, said in the release. 

She said that the new round of funding will allow NHI to involve more Las Vegas students in the three-part leadership program which has transformed more than 100,000 high school students over more than 45 years of programming. 

Stella Helvie, Project Administrator for NHI in Las Vegas, first became involved when her granddaughter – who lives with her – weighed various organizations’ summer programs before choosing the 2024 California Sol Great Debate at the University of San Diego. 

“The majority of the students involved and active in NHI are also straight A students, holding jobs, and doing other extracurricular activities,” she said of the Las Vegas students who participate in NHI. “They’re very, very involved students, and they want to be involved, and they want to make a difference. They care about their futures, but also about their community.” 

“The LDZ has been greatly transformational for me,” said Quetzally Guerrero, a junior at Cristo Rey St. Viator College Prep High School. “I was originally a quiet person, someone who felt distant from others and out of place. It program has helped me understand that becoming a good friend and finding those people you can be yourself with is truly not as difficult as we can imagine. The people at NHI will never fail to make you feel special and appreciated … their teachings are always kept very close to my heart.

“With NHI I have elevated my public speaking skills and have been able to feel overall confidence in my own skin, which has helped me ‘put myself out there,'” she added.

“I would say that by going through the Great Debate, you definitely look toward the strengths of the community,” said Bishop Gorman High School student Soren Smith after attending that program in 2022, NHI’s initial year partnering with Sands. “Typically, you always think about how to improve the negative, whether in your community or the world. But by growing a family at the Great Debate, it really makes you look at the strengths of each other and build off of each other.”

In 2024, Sands-supported students enriched three different NHI programs: The California Sol Great Debate at the University of San Diego, the Colorado LDZ at Colorado State University, and the Rocky Mountain CWS at the University of Denver. 

“When they came back from the conference, they were just on fire,” said Jeff Goebel, principal at Global Community High School in Las Vegas, recently awarded High School Official of the Year by NHI, of his students’ experience. “They loved it. It was a life-changing experience.”