WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) — Hundreds of Wichita-area students have learned the steps they need to take after high school because of the Kansas Hispanic Education & Development Foundation.

Since 2008, the foundation has been doing whatever it can to give students the best chance at being successful after they graduate from high school.

In those 18 years, it’s given out around $1 million in scholarships, but that’s not all it does. It helps throughout the college or trade school application process.

“It’s not just like they get a scholarship, and then they go their own way,” said Yezmin Thomas, a mom of two KHEDF scholars. “No, they stay involved. Graduating from high school, leaving home, moving to a different city, and then starting your college journey that way, that can be a lot for a student.”

Executive Director Pablo Cruz said like with pretty much every nonprofit, volunteers are the key to the foundation’s success.

“I really am proud and honored to work with all of our volunteers,” Cruz said. “They all have the same passion and dedication. I think we’re all in the same spirit when it comes to serving our students and preparing the workforce for Kansas.”

Those volunteers said they just want these students to know that somebody is in their corner, especially since the process could be foreign not only to the students, but to their families as well.

Some of those volunteers are also former students who were helped by KHEDF. They believe paying it forward to the next generation is how they can keep growing the overwhelming success the nonprofit has had.

“I’ve seen students get jobs and graduate and seeing them all over the place,” KHEDF alum and volunteer Zayra Camacho said. “It’s pretty cool to see them, Especially on the news or social media, and seeing how big they’re getting. And it’s mostly because they started here at KHEDF.”

While the foundation has been mainly focused in the Wichita area, it is now expanding its reach to other parts of the state. Learn about that next Monday.

WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) – Update 5:45 p.m.: Meade County Emergency Management shared that Meade is no longer in immediate threat of the wildfire. There is currently no need to evacuate.

People living in Meade County may soon have to evacuate due to wildfires in the area.

On Sunday at around 4:50 p.m., Meade County Emergency Management and the Meade County Sheriff’s Office requested that Meade residents should prepare for possible evacuations.

A wildfire in the area is now threatening Meade. The wildfire is near 17 Road and P Road, about a half mile west of Highway 23. This is around two miles southwest of Meade.

Meade County Emergency Management transmitted the request through US National Weather Service Dodge City Kansas.

Wildfires in southwest Kansas have been active since Thursday. The Meade Lake fire, as of 9:00 p.m. on Saturday, had burned approximately 44,000 acres. Aviation and ground crews have been working to slow the fire’s growth.

Topeka, Salina, Lawrence and small communities in north-central and northwest Kansas are home to the five most beautiful Gothic cathedrals in the state, the World Atlas website says.

Gothic cathedrals have historically been built to be monumental and impressive, drawing eyes toward the heavens while creating an atmosphere that feels sacred.

Pointed arches, flying buttresses, soaring ribbed vaults and intricate stained-glass windows are among architectural characteristics from the Gothic art period, which flourished between the 12th and 16th centuries in Europe.

A Gothic architecture revival then emerged in the 19th century in the U.S.

Gothic churches here show faith, talent, architectural ambition

An article published in December by World Atlas identifies what it characterized as being the five most beautiful Gothic churches in Kansas.

“The state of Kansas’s variety of Gothic churches, built around the late 19th and early 20th centuries, serves as an important reminder of the creative and cultural aspirations of the state’s founders, regardless of whether they were made with local limestone, imported stone, or red brick,” the site said.

Those churches serve as significant representations of faith, talent and architectural ambition, it said.

World Atlas identified the Sunflower State’s five most beautiful Gothic churches as being the following.

Grace Episcopal Cathedral, Topeka

Topeka’s Grace Episcopal Cathedral “offers one of the most compelling combinations of Gothic Revival style and regional limestone craftsmanship in Kansas,” creating a balance “between Gothic drama and Midwestern simplicity,” World Atlas said.

“The current stone cathedral was constructed primarily between 1910 and 1917, although its twin western towers were completed later,” the site said.

The majestic cathedral at SW 8th and Polk was ravaged in 1975 by a devastating arson fire.

But the church was subsequently rebuilt in “one of the most significant late-20th-century preservation achievements in Kansas,” World Atlas said.

The former English Lutheran Church, Lawrence

The rusticated limestone English Lutheran Church in Lawrence is “a great example of Late Gothic Revival architecture on the Kansas frontier,” World Atlas said.

The church was built around 1870, and additions were made around 1900, it said.

“After falling into disrepair in the mid-20th century, preservation efforts by the Lawrence Historic Preservation Alliance and the Kansas State Historical Society saved the building,” World Atlas said. “It was reopened in 1993 as office space, and the adaptive reuse preserved its major architectural features.”

Christ Episcopal Cathedral, Salina

Salina’s Christ Episcopal Cathedral is “perhaps the most academically faithful example of Gothic Revival architecture in Kansas,” World Atlas said.