Students from schools throughout the valley are set to take center stage Friday at the Napa County Hispanic Network’s Scholarship Banquet at Silverado Resort.

The banquet is the Hispanic Network’s biggest event of the year and its main fundraiser for future scholarship banquets. For the past 24 years the network has awarded scholarships to deserving Latino students — a total of $284,000 to 315 students — according to Network President Ed Shenk.

“One of the things that we believe is that education does make a difference and with a changing demographic in our great state, I think we realize that we are going to need these students ... to be educated and come back and help our community,” Shenk said.

This year the network will award 25 scholarships, five more than it did last year, of $1,000 apiece. Shenk said many donors and sponsors, both private and public, come together and contribute to the cause. A silent auction brings in more funds.

This year, the banquet, once held at Chardonnay Hall and more recently at hotels around town, shifts to the Silverado Resort.

For the students who will be honored at Friday’s banquet the money will help pay for college.

Napa Valley College graduate Emmanuel Sanchez-Solorio said the scholarship he will receive will be help “mostly with book money.” He will be continuing his studies in electrical engineering at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. “I spend nearly $500 a semester in books.”

Sanchez-Solorio, 24, immigrated to the United States at age 5 and soon after experienced something he had not in Mexico.

“As a new immigrant, I found coping with the new culture quite shocking and full of both mishaps and adventures,” he wrote in an essay to the network. “It was here in the U.S. that I first encountered my first racial discriminatory incident when some neighborhood parents shooed me away and scolded their children for playing with Hispanic, ethnic children.”

Sanchez-Solorio didn’t let that incident — or seeing many of his peers drop out of high school or experiment with drugs, alcohol and gangs — slow him down. With the encouragement of many of his teachers, he studied hard and graduated from New Technology High School, becoming the first in his immediate family to graduate from high school.

“The only thing that really kept me (going) is that I hated being poor and school was an escape for me so I stayed at school,” he said. “Studying was the best way to get out of my situation. I guess to me it was more of an escape from reality.”

Upon graduation from Cal Poly, Sanchez-Solorio says he would like to return to Napa, but he said that finding a job in his field here may be tough.

Beginning as early as next month, Shenk said that the network will begin to deliver scholarship applications for next year to various high schools throughout Napa County, Napa Valley College and other organizations that work closely with students.

To be eligible for a scholarship, students must have a grade point average of 3.5 or higher, and must write an essay that addresses why they should receive the scholarship. The scholarships are meant for Latino students, or individuals with Hispanic roots.

The banquet begins with a no-host cocktail hour at 5:30 p.m., at Silverado Resort. Tonight’s guest speaker is Amelia Ceja of Ceja Vineyards. Tickets are $75 apiece and for more information visit www.napacountyhispanicnetwork.com.