Angelo “DjLo” Fajardo will help lead the Denver Scholarship Foundation’s 20th anniversary celebration this Friday, stepping onstage as co-emcee of the annual gala while also telling the story of how the organization helped steer him through college and beyond.
Fajardo, a DSF alum and the CEO of Nativo Entertainment, said the invitation matters because he is not speaking as an outsider. He said he has been personally impacted by the foundation and that its guidance helped him through his journey through college and after college. The gala is set for Friday, Oct. 16, at the Sheraton Denver Downtown.
That makes his role more than ceremonial. Denver Scholarship Foundation is marking two decades of work, and Fajardo’s path gives that milestone a face: a student from John F. Kennedy High School in Denver who wanted to DJ professionally, go to college and learn the business side of the industry. He said he grew up in a musical family, had a family band when he was little and became interested in DJing in high school.
But the path to college was not simple. Fajardo said the application and financial aid process felt intimidating, even though he knew he wanted to keep moving toward both education and music. He said he was a first-generation college student, the first in his family to do it, and that the uncertainty came with financial pressures and hard decisions about his future.
What helped, he said, was meeting frequently in high school with a DSF college advisor after an academic advisor pointed him to the foundation. Fajardo said they went over scholarship requirements, but also talked through other possible paths and how to navigate the choices in front of him. That support, he said, made the difference at a stage when many students are trying to sort out deadlines, costs and what comes next all at once.
For the foundation, the anniversary gala is not just a celebration of years passed. It is also a public example of what the group has built over time: a network of students and alumni who can speak to its role in their lives. Fajardo said he hopes being onstage with Denver7 Anchor Micah Smith will do more than recognize the night; he wants even one student to hear his story and feel a little more ready to keep going.
The unanswered question is the scale of that reach. The foundation says it has spent 20 years helping students, but the full count of those it has supported is the number that would most clearly measure what this anniversary means. For now, Friday’s gala puts one alum’s experience at the center of the celebration.
