By Laurie Friedman and Melissa St. Pierre, Co-Chairs Greetings from the Scholarship Committee! We’ve had a wonderfully productive and successful year. Once again, our fundraising efforts paid off in a big way; through the generous support and donations of our neighbors, we were able to award eight students $800 each in scholarships. As you can tell by reading Miranda Siddall’s letter of thanks on page 5 of this newsletter, our student recipients are greatly appreciative.
We’ve also added a mentoring component to our efforts, whereby a committee member checks in periodically with one of our scholarship winners during each semester. As a committee, we’ve gained a few new members (although we are always looking for more!). Finally, we are asking our scholarship recipients to commit to giving back to our community, as a way to “pay it forward” and thank this amazing neighborhood called Cedar Park. As part of their award, they’ve agreed to participate in some CPN-sponsored activity during the year.
But with all the work we’ve done, there’s always more to come. As our scholarship winners approach finals, the committee will be shipping them care packages filled with school supplies and home-baked goods. We are reviewing our application process, and in the next few months, will begin recruiting for next year’s applicants. The application will be posted on the Cedar Park website by February of 2012. And early in the new year, we will begin our planning for next year’s annual fundraising event at Dock Street Brewery.
Lastly, the committee would like to send a special thank you to Laura Tate-McHugh, who served as chair of the committee for many years. Her dedication to the work we do has truly been an inspiration. We are thankful for her organization and attention to detail that makes filling her large shoes a bit less daunting.
We look forward to another exciting year and once again, thank you all for your support and contributions. Questions or comments about the scholarship committee can be sent to: scholarships@cedarparkneighbors.org.