2010 Vol 4 No 2

      Second Quarter Newsletter to our Contributors   -   June 30, 2010 

 

CVCSF Scholars – ConVal High School, Class of 2010

 

 

Congratulations:  We congratulate the six winners of the very special scholarship grants given this year by the ConVal Community Scholarship Foundation Dollars for Scholars (CVCSF) to the graduates whose pictures you see above. This is the fourth year these awards have been given to remarkable students who have faced challenges and demonstrated important progress in their senior year. From the left, above, are Kelsey Fox (Hancock), Art, NH Art Inst; Megan Hart (Greenfield), Business, Colby Sawyer; Mollie Hughes (Francestown), Art, NH Art Inst.; Patrick Tempone (Francestown), Criminal Justice, Keene State College; Randy Thaing (Peterborough),Criminal Justice, NHCTC, Nashua; and Jesse Tilton (Bennington) Automotive Technology, NHCTC, Nashua.

 

Awards: Our $6,200 top awards this year are: 1) the CVCSF Monadnock Rotary Club Scholarship award given to Patrick Tempone and 2) the Peterborough Lions Club Scholarship award to Megan Hart. Jesse Tilton’s $4,000 ConVal Merchants Scholarship award was fully funded by contributions to our collection jars in 24 stores and restaurants in our nine town region. (Dublin General Store, Mr. Mike’s in Peterborough and T-Bird Mini-mart in Antrim collected the most.)

 

A unique scholarship initiative:  These graduates, our 2010 CVCSF Scholars, have been awarded this year’s tuition grants and mentoring assistance through our nine-town ConVal region community foundation to do two things. The first is to give a better chance to a number of carefully selected students who would have had limited hope of postsecondary education opportunity were it not for the help we can provide. The second, through their stories of success, is to inspire hope in others in years ahead to aim higher and achieve, like others before them.. Award winners are chosen each year on the basis of challenges or obstacles they face, senior year progress and evident potential for success, with emphasis on helping those whom our assistance will benefit most.  The foundation’s mission statement is “to inspire hope and confidence with community support to help more students in the ConVal region achieve their potential.” We provide financial assistance to disadvantaged students. See enclosed clipping from the Monadnock Ledger-Transcript of July 1, 2010.

 

Mentor support:  Mentoring makes a big difference for any CVCSF Scholars not well prepared for the transition to postsecondary education when they graduate from ConVal High School. We assign an adult mentor to each award winner to help in this transition and to monitor progress until completion of the programs for which awards are granted. This year award winners met as a group with mentors, CVCSF directors and guidance counselors to learn what help is available and for instructions as to what they need to do for their scholarship grants to be paid to their chosen schools.

 

Progress of prior year award winners:  Seven of the ten winners in the classes of 2007 and 2008 have completed the two years for which our support was given and the eighth is expected to finish in December. (An 80% success rate is remarkable given the challenges some of our winners have had to face.) We can tell you about a few of these as examples. Alycia Mudrack, Peterborough (2007), a ConVal High School drop-out, returned to school, won CVCS support, made dean’s list in her first college semester, earned her associate degree in juvenile justice and expects to earn her four year degree by early in 2011 – all this in less than four years..  Priscilla Coffill, Hancock (2007) will celebrate her first anniversary as a registered nurse at Monadnock Community Hospital in July. Morgan Boutwell (2008), CVCSF Monadnock Rotary Club scholar has completed her second year at Southern New Hampshire University with high marks, has part time employment at TDBankNorth and expects to earn her four year degree in business in 2012. Jie Lu, Dublin (2008) is on an internship assignment at the Marriott Hotel in Nanning, China and will return in September to finish her associate degree in hotel management in December. Samantha Mannion (2009) has won a special scholarship to study and work this summer at the Shoals Marine Laboratory in Maine and has a lab assistant appointment at UNH next year. Watch for more of our success stories in local media.

Financial report: Our less ambitious fundraising budget for 2010 is $37,000. One large gift in January gave us a fast start, but we have $11,000 to go to meet this goal this year. A $50,000 investment account has been established at Charles Schwab, managed for us by Ames Financial Planning. This was funded by contributions designated for this purpose and generous contributions received in earlier years. We are a volunteer organization with no salaried employees and carefully controlled expenses so that most of what we raise can be disbursed as scholarship grants.

 

Special thanks: We are grateful to Ames Financial Planning, mentioned above, for managing our investment account at no fee and also for printing our newsletters. We also thank RiverMead for use of the conference room where most of our board meetings are held and the numerous residents and “waitlisters” who have made generous contributions to our cause.

Vance steps down as CVCSF President:  John Vance, initiator of the ConVal Community Scholarship Foundation Dollars for Scholars initiative in 2006, will step down from his position as president, tomorrow, July 1. He will continue to serve as a director and member of the CVCSF executive committee. He will be succeeded by vice president Philip Grisafi. Other officers are James Callahan, Secretary and Vice President, and Timothy Kolk, Treasurer. In encouraging succession Vance said, “Eighty-two years of age is old enough to qualify for retirement. In recent months many of my duties have been taken over by Phil Grisafi, to other CVCSF officers who are younger and have children now in ConVal schools and to recently added volunteers. We started this initiative with advice, discussion, participation and encouragement from Walter Peterson, Richard Verney, Kathryn Dodge, Bob Condon, Sue Chollet, Bart Goodeve, Joe Hayes, Rob Rubendall and others with two key objectives. The first was to help make two years of postsecondary education experience possible for ConVal region students with potential but limited likelihood of access to it without our help. The second was for the success stories of earlier winners to inspire others to follow. We knew we had to build it to last and become recognized as a ConVal regional community charitable organization.  With individual success stories, more than four hundred contributions received and awards granted to graduates from every one of our nine towns, we have come a long way toward meeting these objectives. Our partnering relationship with ConVal High School in identifying truly worthy recipients works well. Our award winners ‘face challenges, aim higher and achieve.’ Their success record is above average for high school graduates nationally. We are financially healthy; our board of nine volunteer directors is strong, with all three officers being parents of students in ConVal schools. It is gratifying to see this initiative off to such a strong start.” CVCSF is well positioned to continue to succeed and grow. Work to prepare for the Class of 2011 starts now.