|
Each April 1st the Scholarship chairperson send out applications to the school counselors and home school organizations for graduating seniors to apply for the Soldotna Rotary Club's "Service above Self" College Scholarships. Applications are due by May 15 and are reviewed by 5-6 Soldotna Rotarians, we usually receive about 25 applications. We give out 8 one thousand dollar scholarships. The primary criteria that the scholarship committee uses are students who live the "Service Above Self" Motto. Grades and Athletics are give a low consideration. The Scholarship chairperson keeps the winners a surprise and attends that schools "Award Assembly" and makes the presentations. It is kind of cool to be able to recognize students that are not always the Honor students and top grant recipients. After the "Awards Assembly" we have the winning students and their parents come to a Rotary meeting where they tells us about themselves and where they are going to college. The money is not just given to the student but sent to the college. Occasionally we have a graduate put off college for a year and we hold off on awarding the scholarship until they are ready to go. Soldotna's scholarship program has really benefited youths over the years and educates them about Rotary and makes them want to be involved with Rotary in the future. We have had scholarship recipients come back to the club and thank us for our support and tells us what they are doing. This is a great program and we would appreciate District 5010's financial support.
We usually do around $10,000 per year in scholarships and once the scholarship is awarded the students can use them when then need them in the future. We have two students that are using their scholarships in January of this year so the money will be spent by June of 2014.
| 
