When Luis Cifuentes began searching for a university to donate to, he listened to his heart.
“I had some money that I wanted to donate and started looking at American universities,” said Cifuentes. At age 92, he is physically fit, sharp, and jokes that he still works every day in retirement. “I had a lot of them coming after me, saying, ‘Please send money.’ But I didn’t want to help them just make more money or to increase their sports programs.”
Searching for a worthy recipient, Cifuentes learned about the La Salle International Foundation, named after St. John Baptist de La Salle, who in 1680 founded a lay community in France that took the name “Brothers of Christian Schools” with a mission to help those on peripheries of society.
A native of Colombia, Cifuentes knew his search was over when he discovered La Salle University’s Utopia Project in rural Yopal, Colombia. “I’m from Colombia and they really needed help,” he said. “The people are poor and there is a lot of suffering and I have never done anything for them.”
Drug cartels made life for the poor people of Yopal worse according to Cifuentes, who retired from an engineering career in New York 30 years ago and has lived in the Arlington diocese for 26 years. “The farmers just wanted to live peacefully,” he said. “The cartels went in there and said, ‘Hey, this is a good place to grow some more drugs,’ and told the people, ‘Get out of here, I need that.’ You had families that were either displaced or just homeless and a tremendous number of kids growing up who didn’t know where to go or what to do.”
The decades-long dominance of the drug cartels has receded but hopes of earning a college degree for most were dim. Knowing he had a chance to make an impact, Cifuentes donated $200,000 for the construction of new meeting and social facilities on the 15-year-old campus.
“It’s a university that can grant degrees,” said Cifuentes. “Local kids can now work on agri-engineering degrees and after they graduate, they can stay in their community. They don’t want to move to the city. They love farming and being farmers.”
The Brothers of Christians School website describes how “students apply what they have learned in the classroom and work during their training process, from harvesting to agro-industrial processes. In the words of Brother Chris Patiño, “Utopia teaches us that when we have a clear mission, we can generate unity, share the same spirit and have an impact together wherever we go,” he said.
“Luis Cifuentes has been a true sower of dreams at Utopía,” said Sylvia M. Castrillon Gonzalez, director of philanthropy at La Salle University Yopal. “Inspired by the values that shaped his life, he approached La Salle University with a clear purpose — to support the social mission of the Lasallian community. That intention gave rise to the Teatrino Hermano Sebastián Félix — a space where our rural students in the Utopía Project can celebrate their identity and cultural diversity. Thanks to his generous support, we now have in Yopal a place of gathering and fraternity that brings our community together.”
Cifuentes remains engaged in his philanthropic work and church life following the death of his wife, Leonor, in 2022 after 65 years of marriage. He credits his vitality to the practice of attending daily Mass, which he began in the 1930s as an altar server in Colombia and continues now as a parishioner at Holy Trinity Church in Gainesville.
“How much money do I need right now to live?” said Cifuentes. “If I’m alive when I’m 95, I’ll go to my kids and tell them to support me. The Lord sent me here for some sort of a job. I don’t always know what the job is, but he’s keeping me here until I do it.”
