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Students encouraged to apply for Christian Service Awards scholarships
By Andrew Junker, ajunker@catholicsun.org
August 21, 2008
Teresa and Clare Curry have already graduated from high school, but both could be seen traipsing across Xavier College Preparatory’s campus Aug. 7.
Along with a handful of other graduates and current students, the Currys stood on a staircase, turned and smiled at a professional photographer 50 feet away, before moving off to the next location.
They were taking photos for the Catholic Community Foundation’s Christian Service Awards. Both Currys received the award prior to entering Xavier, and now their faces will remind other grade-school students to apply for the scholarships.
“The Christian Service Awards have been given a fresh new look which will attract the attention of more young people, and we want to provide this scholarship opportunity to as many young people as possible,” said Michael Bossone, a member of the Christian Service Awards committee.
The Currys and other award alums figure into that new look, but so does a brand new Web site, which makes applying for the awards simple. The foundation also streamlined the application process.
In previous years, it was necessary for an adult non-family member to nominate a student for the awards — each of which carries a $2,000 yearly scholarship to any local Catholic high school. Now, students can self-nominate.
“Everyone involved is extremely excited about the changes and what they will bring to this wonderful program,” Bossone said.
An additional change to the award selection process is that each applicant will have the opportunity to be interviewed by the Christian Service Awards committee. Last year, only the finalists were interviewed.
Though time-consuming — especially in light of the 100-plus applications expected this year — Bossone is enthused about this step.
“The interviews themselves were inspirational, for it gave us the chance to witness with our own eyes and ears the maturity, humility and compassion of these exceptional young people,” he said.
“And for the applicants, it provides them with an invaluable experience, as interviewing is an important skill that only improves with repetition and practice,” Bossone said.
But it’s up to the students to take the first step, and since the scholarships are service-based, that means getting in some serious volunteering before their eighth-grade graduation.
“I had just finished a big service project for the Girl Scouts, collecting Christmas decorations and sending them to a city in New Mexico,” said Teresa Curry, who graduated from Xavier in 2005.
Her younger sister Clare volunteered her summer before eighth grade at St. Joseph’s Hospital, helping out at nurses’ stations.
Both of them hope their involvement will spur on sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders to get their service hours in, especially if the students — or more importantly, their parents — are staring down rising tuition costs.
“The award could really provide an opportunity for a family to afford a school,” Clare said. As one of six girls in her family, she knows first-hand that programs like the Christian Service Awards can help Catholic grade school students continue their Catholic education in high school.
But to Bossone, the awards also symbolize so much more. They are a celebration.
They’re “a celebration of serving others as Christ taught us; a celebration of many subsets of our community working together for the greater good; a celebration of Catholic education and the development of minds and hearts; and a celebration of our young people and the grace that God allows to flow through them into our world,” he said.
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