{"id":192358,"date":"2026-02-25T02:47:09","date_gmt":"2026-02-25T02:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/192358\/"},"modified":"2026-02-25T02:47:09","modified_gmt":"2026-02-25T02:47:09","slug":"uc-berkeley-student-who-works-at-chick-fil-a-gets-25000-scholarship-from-ceo-andrew-t-cathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/192358\/","title":{"rendered":"UC Berkeley student who works at Chick-fil-A gets $25,000 scholarship from CEO Andrew T. Cathy"},"content":{"rendered":"

EMERYVILLE, Calif. (KGO) — A UC Berkeley student from San Jose got a special surprise at the Chick-fil-A in Emeryville Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Danna Avila, who attends UC Berkeley and works at Chick-fil-A was greeted by Andrew T. Cathy, the CEO of Chick-fil-A who surprised the team member with a $25,000 scholarship.<\/p>\n

“The journey has been so long and difficult and getting an opportunity like this,” Avila said. “I can’t even put it into words how thankful I am.”<\/p>\n

MORE: Daly City high school student surprised with $25,000 scholarship from Chick-fil-A<\/a><\/p>\n

“She’s worked really, really hard to keep up her grades, a volunteer in the community,” Cathy said. “She’s had a lot of leadership roles here in the restaurant, somebody that just has a clear vision for the future, what she wants to do and we just want to come along and help support her.”<\/p>\n

Avila, 22, worked at the Sunnyvale location before attending Cal and still works there during her breaks.<\/p>\n

She is a first-generation college student and her family joined in on the celebration, teary-eyed as they hugged her with pride.<\/p>\n

One of the Chick-fil-A cows even got in on the surprise.<\/p>\n

“Seeing them being here and crying for me and just seeing how proud they are of me, it’s a feeling I will never get over,” she said.<\/p>\n

Avila plans to go to medical school with the goal of becoming an oncologist.<\/p>\n

“The healthcare system is very much broken and I think there needs to be things done to fix it and if I could give back to my community, other communities, it would be amazing,” Avila said.<\/p>\n

MORE: ‘I’m forever grateful’: Cheyney University student chosen as Disney UNCF Scholar<\/a><\/p>\n

Cathy said they’ve awarded more than $200 million in scholarships since 1973.<\/p>\n

This year, the company is investing $29 million in scholarships to more than 16,000 team members, with thirteen of them being $25,000. Like Avila’s.<\/p>\n

“I’m so grateful,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"Now<\/a><\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2026 KGO-TV. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"EMERYVILLE, Calif. (KGO) — A UC Berkeley student from San Jose got a special surprise at the Chick-fil-A…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":192359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[90130,143,145,144],"class_list":{"0":"post-192358","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-90130","9":"tag-oakland","10":"tag-oakland-headlines","11":"tag-oakland-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/192359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}