Promise Partners Ephraim and Sara del Pozo
Chance meeting turns into lifelong commitment to each other and community
“A couple meets in a bar” sounds like the beginning of a cheesy joke. But after that chance meeting, Ephraim and Sara del Pozo are still together four decades later.
Despite a rocky start that included one of them standing up the other for a first date, their relationship defines commitment — from exchanging wedding vows 38 years ago to investing in their community today, including San Jacinto College.
For Ephraim and Sara, giving back has often revolved around youth and education. Early
in their marriage, they helped build a medical clinic and served in a vacation Bible
school program in Mexico. They also sponsored Head Start early childhood program classrooms,
providing Christmas gifts for underprivileged kids.
Recently, they established the del Pozo Family Community Fund to sponsor scholarship-raising activities.
Both understand the tears and sweat behind finishing degrees. After starting at a university, Ephraim switched to part-time San Jac classes while working in refineries. He attended off and on for several years, grateful that professors understood his work schedule.
“I was only able to take a class or two at a time,” he said. “I tell people that's what it takes: Sometimes you’ve got to put one foot in front of the other.”
Around 1990, he transferred to the University of Houston-Clear Lake only a few classes shy of a business and accounting associate degree. After earning his bachelor’s degree in accounting and passing the CPA exam, he received a J.D. degree from South Texas College of Law, where he remains involved.
Sara, a single mother when they met, finally mustered the courage to tell Ephraim she had dropped out of high school to care for her baby.
“You know, he didn't judge me, but he did encourage me,” she said.
She got her GED at San Jac, then — like Ephraim — took a here-and-there approach to college classes. In 2008, she graduated from San Jac with her associate degree in psychology.
“I finally walked across that stage, and that stage meant more to me than probably anyone else,” she said.
Today, Ephraim specializes in energy finance law at a Houston law firm. Sara went on to earn a psychology bachelor’s degree — expertise that came in handy while managing an industrial staffing company.
Both reconnected with San Jac after an active alumna invited them to the Hollywood Nights Gala this past May. There, they decided to become Promise Partners.
“I think [the Promise @ San Jac Scholarship] is a wonderful program,” Sara said. “I love that it’s going to continue. Everyone that can get involved should.”
If anyone can understand the challenges that stand in the way of a degree, it’s the del Pozos. They hope their gift reaches “untapped potential” — students who would otherwise choose not to go to college.
“We need to help students become successful,” Ephraim said. “It creates a better fabric for the whole community economically, educationally, professionally, socially, and in all other ways.”
The Promise @ San Jac Scholarship covers in-district high school graduates’ tuition and books for up to three years.
