Carver H.S. student wins award from Princeton University

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Gustavo Garcia Perez, a senior and drum major at Carver High School in Birmingham, was recently awarded the Princeton Prize in Race Relations in Alabama for 2023. Perez was selected among several applicants in the state.

He will receive a $1,000 award and an invitation to attend the Symposium on Race at Princeton University where he will have the opportunity to meet Princeton Prize winners from across the United States. In addition to earning the distinction of the first Hispanic Drum Major at Carver High in 2021, Perez raised just under $65,000 for blood cancer research during the 2021 Lymphoma and Leukemia Society Student of the Year Program.

In the same year he helped make recycling more accessible to his peers by serving as a leader on the school’s Altec Innovation Challenge Team and YouthServe School Changemakers Council that won $10,000 to launch the school’s recycling program. Perez has been a member of Carver’s social justice club, Heritage Panel, since 9th grade. In addition to his responsibilities in band and Heritage Panel, he serves as president of Carver’s National Honor Society, and he is a leader on the Ram’s boys soccer team.

Perez is an alum of the Youth Leadership Forum and the Anytown Alabama Leadership Summit. A scholar in Carver’s Academy of Engineering, he will graduate with the Seal of Biliteracy in English and Spanish this June. He plans to attend Miles College in the fall and major in Computer Information Sciences.

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