HOLA’s Chief of Staff Giselle Osorio-Beltran finds community, then helps build it for others

Greenville native and Furman senior, Giselle Osorio-Beltran ‘27 first learned about HOLA (Hispanic Outreach and Latinx Awareness) while attending Furman Forward as a high school student. During a student panel, she listened as a HOLA member spoke about their involvement with the group and filed it away for the future.

As soon as Osorio-Beltran arrived on campus, she sought out HOLA at the student involvement fair, met members of its executive team and attended one of the organization’s meetings.

“For me, finding a community was very important,” Osorio-Beltran said.

Four years later, Osorio-Beltran is chief of staff of the organization she first heard about as a prospective student. Today, she is helping HOLA create that same sense of community for other Hispanic and Latine students while inviting the wider Furman community to experience and learn about their varied cultures.

For Osorio-Beltran, a first-generation college student whose family is from Mexico, helping other students find a sense of belonging is especially meaningful. As HOLA chief of staff, she wants students to feel welcomed, build connections and have opportunities to share and celebrate their cultures.

That mission extends beyond her time at Furman. Osorio-Beltran and other HOLA leaders recently began researching the organization’s history and discovered it goes back further than they initially realized. While the earliest digital mention they found dates to 2012, conversations with Furman library archives staff and an alumnus suggested HOLA was active on campus as early as the 2000s.

“Long before us, people have been working toward strengthening our community on campus and beyond,” Osorio-Beltran said. “We are doing our part to continue that tradition.”

Today, HOLA works not only to provide a space for Hispanic and Latine students but also to introduce the wider Furman community to their cultures.

“There’s a misconception that you have to be Hispanic or Latine to come to our events and be part of HOLA,” she said. “But that’s not the case at all.”

One of the organization’s most effective ways of bringing people together is also one of the simplest: food.

HOLA has brought food from local Colombian and Salvadoran restaurants to its events, giving students an opportunity to experience different cultures while gathering around a table. Sometimes, Osorio-Beltran said, students enjoy what they try enough to reach out afterward and ask where the food came from.

At this fall’s Fiesta Hispana, the organization’s Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, students gathered on the Trone Student Center patio for food, vase painting and a bachata dance class. Osorio-Beltran initially wondered whether students would stop by for food and leave. Instead, many stayed at the tables talking and painting, and a crowd remained for the dance class toward the end of the event.

Students participate in a bachata dance class during HOLA’s Fiesta Hispana celebration.

“Just seeing everybody have a good time, that’s what matters,” she said. “And that’s what the events are for.”

Moments like those represent what she is most proud of from her time with HOLA.

“Even if my name isn’t put down somewhere, people won’t know who worked to get these things done,” she said. “At least I helped in some way to foster a sense of community for our students.”

HOLA is looking for ways to continue building that community. The organization hopes to host a Cultural Life Program next semester featuring an off-campus speaker, and members have been discussing ways to provide more resources for Hispanic and Latine students and give them more of a voice on campus.

HOLA has also begun connecting with more student organizations interested in collaborations, expanding opportunities for students across Furman to engage with the organization and its events.

For Osorio-Beltran, that visibility and connection are especially important for prospective and incoming students who may be looking for the same sense of community she was searching for when she first learned about HOLA.

“I just hope prospective students that are Hispanic and Latine who are thinking of applying to Furman know there is a community here for you if you do decide to call Furman your second home later on,” she said. “You will be able to find a space.”