Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/290181
Sacramento River Dis- covery Charter School was invited to attend We Day California, an educational event and movement of young people leading local and global change. Carly Martinez, teacher at the school, brought 12 stu - dents who were chosen to go based on academics, at- titude, willingness to work hard, example setters and students who strive to be better people. We Day is tied to the yearlong We Act program, which offers curricular re - sources, campaigns and ma- terials to help turn the day's inspiration into sustained activation. We Day is part of a fam - ily of organizations, includ- ing Free The Children and Me to We, that has a shared goal: to empower a genera- tion to shift the world from me to we, through how we act, how we give, the choices we make on what to buy and what to wear, the media we consume and the experi - ences with which we choose to engage. Students who were cho- sen to be a part of this had to commit to service through- out the community to make global and local changes. The students have already done environmental clean- ups, planted trees, volun - teered at the local animal center, and still plan to do many other community ser- vice based events. Motivational Speakers and performers for We Day included, Selena Gomez, Seth Rogan, Magic John - son, Rainy and Rico Ro- driquez, Big Sean, Spen- cer West, Martin wSheen, Orlando Bloom, Mar tin Luther King III, Leila Ali, Clementine Wamariya a Rwandan Genocide Sur - vivor, and Reggie Watts. S p e a ker s a nd p er for - mances were motivational and encouraging, and stu- dents greatly enjoyed this experience. WE DAY A da y fo r gl ob al c ha ng e Sa cra me nt o R iv er D is co ve ry C ha rt er s tu de nt s ea rn th ei r w ay t o n at io na l e ve nt a t O ra cl e A re na i n O ak la nd Courtesy photo sacramento river Discovery Charter school students during their trip to oakland for the We Day California event. Courtesy photo richfield students of the trimester are selected each trimester from their classrooms for a variety of reasons which may include high academic achievement, improved classroom or schoolwork behaviors, outstanding social skills, good character or overall positive behaviors. pictured are the richfield students of the 2nd trimester. Courtesy photo rotarians Will and susan Murphy, Larry Champion and Charles Allen present dictionaries to third grade students at Lincoln street school. DonAtion pErformAncE Courtesy photo Gerber serrF students have been training with dance instructor, rojelio Veramontez, from royal King Academy. he has taught the students the meaning of "If you earn it, you deserve it." they learned that through hard work, discipline and motivation you can achieve anything. pictured is the culminating dance performance held for teachers and parents. SErrf AZUSA » Several area res- idents made the academic Deans' List at Azusa Pacific University. They include Cody Yar - borough of Red Bluff and Karleigh Berens, Jordan Brunner and Samuel Gris- som of Chico. These students made a fall 2013 grade-point aver - age of 3.5 or better. Some 1,774 students receive the same honor. APU is an evangelical Christian uni - versity committed to God First and excellence in higher education. AZUSA pAcific Ya rb or ou gh n am ed to fall dean's list corVALLiS » Mary Beth Nicholson is among the students who have made the Scholastic Honor Roll Winter term announced by Oregon State Univer - sity. Nicholson, from Cotton- wood, is a senior studying civil engineering. A total of 932 students earned straight-A (4.0). An - other 3,634 earned a B-plus (3.5) or better to make the listing. To be on the Honor Roll, students must carry at least 12 graded hours of course work. orEgon StAtE Ni ch ol so n ma ke s winter honor roll By michael Alison chandler The Washington Post Looking for money for col- lege? The Klingon Language Institute has a scholarship for students pursuing lan- guage study, earthly or alien; the United States Bowling Congress gives grants to promising young bowlers; and the Ayn Rand Institute rewards essay writers who are adept at deconstruct - ing her novels, such as "The Fountainhead" and "Atlas Shrugged." As college tuitions have soared and median house - hold incomes declined, many aspiring college students face a daunting gap. Lacking well-stocked col - lege savings plans or wealthy grandparents, they are turn- ing to a vast and idiosyn- cratic private industry to help them get to college. Nearly 2 million under- graduates used $6.2 billion in private scholarships — aside from college athletic scholar- ships and college grants — to help pay for college in the 2011-2012 school year, ac- cording to a federal survey of more than 95,000 students. That was more than twice the amount of such scholar - ship funding that 1.1 million undergraduates reported using four years earlier. The increased reliance on scholarships means there are more students for whom college application season blends into an extended, anxious period of essay writ - ing and grant deadlines. It's all done in the hope that fi- nancial-aid decisions — which will be mailed during the next few weeks — won't derail plans to attend their dream schools. But unlike college ap - plications, which require a relatively predictable mix of grades and course work and extracurriculars, what one needs to obtain a schol - arship is often far more elu- sive. "For some scholarships, you have to be African- American or Indian. . . . For some, you have to write with your left hand," said Vikaya Powell, a senior at T.C. Wil - liams High School in Alex- andria, Va. "Sometimes, it's just the weirdest stuff." Powell, 17, amped up her scholarship search last De - cember, after her mother, a single parent, was laid off from her job at a bank. Pow- ell wants to be the first in her immediate family to receive a degree. She has her heart set on Winston-Salem State University in North Caro - lina. The out-of-state school is not likely to be Powell's most affordable option. So she spends hours each week on websites such as Scholar - ships.com, combing through criteria and looking for cash. Scholarship shopping has become a hobby. On a recent afternoon she reviewed some of the many announcements that she had rejected. They included: — The Flag Manufactur - ers Association of America, which is looking for the best video about what the flag means to you. (Too techni - cal, she said.) — The National Cattle- men's Foundation rewards outstanding students who want to work in the beef in- dustry. ("I eat beef," she had thought hopefully, before reading the fine print.) — The Dutchcrafters Amish Furniture Heritage Scholarship is seeking stu - dents who merge their cul- tural heritage with their vocational aspirations. ("I can't figure this one out," she said.) There are an estimated 1.5 million scholarships in the United States, or at least that's the best guess for the sprawling industry, said Mark Kantrowitz, an expert in financing college who created Fastweb, a free online scholarship matching service. Kantrowitz now works at Edvisors, an Internet stu - dent resource center. Many scholarships re- ward promising academic, athletic or artistic talents. Some promote corporate brands or social causes, or they carry out the particu - lar interests of any number of groups. They all aim to advance the most American of ideals: a college education that can change the course of some - one's life. There are scholarships for future beekeepers, wine- makers and candy technolo- gists. The American Sheep Industry Association re- wards students who sew or knit clothes made of wool, and the makers of Duck- brand duct tape have a schol - arship for those who make the most colorful and or- nate prom dresses — out of duct tape. The 14-year-old contest introduces duct tape to young customers. It also fills a niche in the scholarship universe, said Mary Kate Rosfelder, product manager for Duck Tape at ShurTech Brands in northern Ohio. A lot of awards are geared "to the smartest kids or the jocks," she said. "We thought, 'Why not create a fun scholarship contest for kids who are fun and cre - ative?' " Little People of Amer- ica offers scholarships to promising students who are 4 feet 10 inches tall or less; Tall Clubs International of - fers financial aid to women taller than 5-foot-10 and men taller than 6-foot-2. Some of the best known scholarships, like the Gates Millennium, pay large sums and go to outstanding stu - dents with the most compel- ling personal stories. The vast majority, though, offer checks for $500 here or $2,000 there. After a lot of digging — and with help from a per - sonal mentor and some school counselors — Powell winnowed her list to nearly three dozen scholarships, in - cluding offers of aid from the Daughters of the American Revolution, two college so- rorities and the Ronald Mc- Donald House Charities. The largest one is a $20,000 renewable scholar- ship through the United Ne- gro College Fund and the smallest a $500 book grant from the Northern Virginia Urban League. Most applica - tions required information about her grade-point aver- age, SAT scores and volun- teer work and essays about her career aspirations. But a few have different requirements. She is also preparing for a quiz about fire sprinkler safety in the hopes of winning a check from the American Fire Sprinkler Association. To many students, a few hundred dollars can seem paltry when compared with tuition bills in the tens of thousands of dollars — or the effort of writing yet an - other essay about a tough ob- stacle they had to overcome or the causes and effects of pollution. So most don't try for these types of scholar - ships. "They don't yet under- stand the value of a dollar," said Gregory Forbes, direc- tor of counseling at T.C. Wil- liams. That lesson comes when "their student loan bills come in," he said. There also are a lot of stu - dents who assume that they won't be qualified for schol- arships or that college is sim- ply unaffordable. First lady Michelle Obama went to T.C. Williams in Feb- ruary to dispel such ideas by encouraging students to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, to see if they are eligible for need- based federal grants, loans or work-study funding that might put college within reach. "Don't leave money on the table," she told them. HigHEr EDUcAtion Scholarships are found in odd places Websites help applicants connect with their heritage, hobbies, skills and even talents with duct tape "f or so me scholarships, you have to be African-American or indian. . . . for some, you have to write with your left hand. Sometimes, it's just the weirdest st uf f. "" — Vikaya Powell, a senior at T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, Va. EDUCATION » redbluffdailynews.com friday, April 4, 2014 » More At FACEBOOK.COM/RBDAILYNEWS AND TWITTER.COM/REDBLUFFNEWS B4