JonFranco Barretto, the first generation of his family to go to college.

Even though JonFranco Barretto just began his freshman year at Tufts University a couple of months ago and is inundated with things to do – demanding classes to keep up with, making new friends, adjusting to dorm life – he is nevertheless thinking about how he can use his time and resources to help those who are less fortunate, a trait Barretto cultivated while he was a student at Minuteman Career & Technical High School in Lexington.

The valedictorian of the Minuteman Class of 2009, Barretto, now 19, and a Minuteman classmate decided to run a food drive while they were students in high school that garnered a whopping 210 pounds of edible items for the Greater Boston Food Bank.

Right now, he says he’s “getting his feet wet before he jumps in the ocean,” so to speak, and is researching possibilities for charitable endeavors he can volunteer for, such as assisting homeless people with resume writing and obtaining business attire for job interviews, doing cancer awareness outreach in the community, or contributing his time to an organization called CHILD (Caring Helps in Living with Disabilities), which would involve working with mentally-challenged youngsters.

Barretto’s philanthropic leanings surfaced at Minuteman, where he was Community Service and Events Coordinator for the school’s chapter of the National Honor Society.  When he declares, “I really want to contribute,” his sincerity and determination are beyond question.

So is Barretto’s intellect.  Equipped with a nearly perfect GPA of 3.9 at Minuteman, where he was a straight A student, he says that college is “a whole entire new world,” with classes that cover the required material far more rapidly and more in-depth than in high school.  Because he is aiming at a career as a plastic surgeon, Barretto realizes that the rigors of his studies as an undergraduate and potentially in medical school later on are just beginning.

Still, this amiable, focused, buoyant young man emphasizes that his education at Minuteman, especially in the Biotechnology Academy there, a grueling program of scientific and academic courses geared to the most enterprising students, prepared him superbly for Tufts and beyond.

“I was ready to take on the courseload” at college, Barretto asserts, particularly in areas like biology and chemistry.  He’s admittedly “acing” classes such as Spanish and English, also thanks to excellent high school training.  “Minuteman set me up for the fundamentals of every single class,” he explains.  “I had everything I needed to know to succeed at Tufts.”

In light of his admirable scholastic record at Minuteman and continuing loyalty to the school – Barretto made it a point to ask that this story include an emphatic thank you from him to everyone there – he gets exasperated with people who wrongly assume that a vocational (it’s now referred to more commonly as career and technical) education is inadequate for admission to a top-tier college or as a preface to a high-powered, lucrative professional career.

“The education you receive in a vocational high school,” Barretto says, “is the same as at a traditional high school except more hands-on.  You have academic homework during the weeks you are in your vocational class, including major assignments.”

The so-called “soft skills” he acquired at Minuteman are proving useful too, such as punctuality, teamwork, respect for teachers and his peers, and having an understanding of people’s innate differences.

“Everyone has their own passion at Minuteman, which is like a community in itself,” he observes.  :”Not only is it a school where you’ll get a great education, but you’ll have a lot of fun.  You will have a great time, I promise you.”