East Hampton Resident Wins Peconic Bay Zonta ESL Scholarship

Photo by Paul Turano

Ana C. Aucapina Tigre of East Hampton won a $300 scholarship from Peconic Bay Zonta, a service and advocacy group that works to improve the status of women. Peconic Bay Zonta Co-president Diane Greenberg (left) gave Aucapina Tigre her award at Suffolk County Community College’s eastern campus, where she has been taking the school’s English as a Second Language (ESL) courses to improve her language skills. The local Zonta group awards the scholarship biannually to a female student in an ESL program who is studying to achieve an educational goal.

Aucapina Tigre came to the U.S. from Ecuador nine years ago. She works as a line cook at Page 63 Main in Sag Harbor. She would like to improve her English and earn her General Equivalency Diploma so that she can progress in her career and perhaps eventually become a sous chef or executive chef. She said that she strives hard to learn English and advance her education for her 11-year-old son, who is still in Ecuador. She has not seen him in nine years, but she talks to him every day and hopes some day he may join her in the U.S.