Faith is the anchor for Areliz Fierro.
Whether the Union Public Schools senior is on stage leading worship or in front of CEOs as a Horatio Alger scholar, everything stems from a commitment to her community, her church and giving back.
“It’s just seeing how something so small can make an impact,” Fierro said. “It’s just remembering that we are called to be a light.”
That drive comes in large part from her mother, Elizabeth Pineda, a single parent and immigrant who’s sure the Lord has “always, always” shown up for her daughters. Fierro inherited that same faith.
The senior’s Tuesdays are spent at Union’s chapter of Students for Christ, a club she revitalized with a fellow student. She spends at least five hours with her youth worship team at Iglesia Hispana Victory every Wednesday and Sunday, then leads a weekend small group mentoring young women.
“She just has such a heart for the youth and the community, that is not just about singing, but it’s about when she comes off the stage,” said Diana Vidales, youth pastor at Iglesia Hispana Victory. “She makes sure to go out of her way to connect with the students that go, to hear them out, to listen.”
Fierro wasn’t always her outgoing, confident self. When she first came to Next Gen Victory, the church’s youth program, she was a shy kid. In her audition for the worship team, she rarely grabbed the mic to sing, Vidales said.
As a rising freshman at Union, Fierro was “dragged” by her older sister, Jennifer Fierro, to 918 Kickstart, a two-day summer camp for incoming freshmen and sophomores to learn about options after graduation. While Fierro seemed timid, the Union College and Career team says her maturity was already shining through.
“She was still, even as a rising ninth grader, impressive and incredible and very personable,” said Emily Ashley, a college and career adviser at Union High School. “And I think that’s one of the things that’s always impressing me about Areliz, is how mature and just confident, really confident she’s always been.”
Lots of kids who come through Iglesia Hispana Victory feel they have limitations due to their backgrounds, Vidales said. At Next Gen, they hope to lessen those fears.
“We really do focus on just encouraging them,” Vidales said. “Using the word of God to go for their goals and to go for the purpose that God has given them, regardless of their ethnicity, regardless of where their parents are coming from.”
Little by little, that confidence poured out as Fierro became a worship leader, volunteered at Next Gen and dove into high school.
“We saw her confidence just flourish, we saw her self-esteem flourish,” Vidales said.
Bored on a random snow day, Fierro put herself out there again as a junior by applying for a Horatio Alger Scholarship. The prestigious national program prioritizes students with critical financial needs and a perseverance to overcome obstacles.
Fierro’s mother immigrated to the U.S. in 2001 from Mexico City. Come fall, Fierro will join her sister as a first-generation college student. Jennifer Fierro graduated from The University of Tulsa in 2024.
“Just seeing how much (my mom) poured into us and how much she wanted just for us to have a better future than she did,” Areliz Fierro said. “My older sister as well, seeing her experience and seeing how those obstacles weren’t setbacks, but rather, those were kind of like things that just pushed her forward.”
When the email hit her inbox in May awarding her $25,000, she thought it was a scam.
Throughout Fierro’s senior year, the nonprofit supported her college application process with check-ins from coaches and mentors to make sure she wasn’t burning herself out. Last month, she and the other 105 national recipients traveled to Washington, D.C. for the national conference.
“It feels like all my work wasn’t in vain,” Pineda said in Spanish, translated by her daughter. “I’ve seen how much work they put into their education and I’m really proud of them as individuals. They’ve worked really hard to get where they are.”
With support from the program, Fierro secured additional college scholarships. This year, Union’s College and Career Center helped her secure an internship running social media for Wyatt Technical Services. Fierro still stops by the center every day.
“She’s just one of those students who really just kind of lights up the room when she gets in it,” said Jill Manning, a college and career adviser at Union High School.
The center made the biggest impact on her high school success, Fierro said.
“They’re teachers, but they don’t just see you as a student, they don’t just see you as a name, they just care for you as an individual and as a person,” she said. “Them being there was kind of a stepping stone for me to get to where I’m at.”
Fierro would have still achieved all those things without them, Ashley said.
“Areliz is just a really great example of what can happen when students have a vision for their future early,” Ashley said. “She saw something that she wanted for her future and she went after it, and she started working on it early and kind of taking those little baby steps.”
As she enters that future, Fierro wants to continue pouring into underserved communities. She plans to major in finance and entrepreneurship at TU this fall.
Fierro graduates with her Union classmates at 7 p.m. Wednesday on the Oral Roberts University campus. She hopes to stay in Tulsa after college to help build financial literacy skills in the Hispanic community, showing them how much opportunity is out there.
“I hope that when I am encountering people in the Tulsa community, that they just see the light in me,” Fierro said. “That they see the difference.”
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