Community Service Scholarships
Community service scholarships are available to those students who have displayed a clear passion for working within their neighborhoods, towns, or regions to do what they can to lend a helping hand where needed. While many scholarships often involve community service as a portion of their requirements for showing the merit necessary to get access to an award, most of them are not built up around the idea of community service being the primary pillar on which merit is based. Students who are interested in getting potentially easy scholarships for community service will often not only need to be involved in volunteer activities but have a clear drive or passion in what volunteer activities they involve themselves in.
Applicants to community service scholarships for college should ask themselves a couple of really key questions – what is it that attracts them to community service and why have they remained such regular volunteers? Answering those two questions will go a long way towards helping potential community service scholarship applicants write their essays and prepare for potential interviews by selection committees.
There are numerous possible easy scholarships for community service available to applicants with the zeal and drive if one knows where to look. A great place to check for community service scholarships is through local Rotary Clubs. Known for their charitable giving and dedication to community service, it is no surprise that these organizations often offer programs which support their volunteer oriented interests. As a great example of such a community service scholarship, the Rotary Club of Winchester, Massachusetts provides a varying number of $5,000 scholarships every year to students who meet their slogan of, “Service above self.” All applicants must be residents of Winchester, MA, be graduating from high school, be accepted to college and be able to show that they have actively sought out to participate in community service or promote peace in the world. All applications must be turned in by April 1 of every year. Look for a Rotary Club near you to apply.
The Christopher Reeve Award scholarship for community service for high school seniors is awarded every year by the Heart of America Foundation’s Heroes of the Heart program. This community service scholarship awards $1,000 to a student who has displayed exceptional compassion through community service activities. A previous winner of the award represents a strong example of what it may take to win such an award. Having at least 8,000 hours of community service formally logged as well as being responsible for raising more than $40,000 to fight malaria, the 2010 winner is a shining star with regards to her volunteer services. All students must be nominated for this award and nominees will need to be high school seniors. There are no restrictions on who may nominate students. All nomination materials must be submitted by September 1.
Another great source for students who have a lot of community service hours under their belt would be the Lowe’s Scholarship program. This community service scholarship provides (140) $2,500 awards to students every year making this award an easier scholarship to get because so many are given out each year. In order to be eligible for the program students will need to be high school seniors with at least a 3.25 grade point average who will be able to show an incredible commitment to community service throughout their young lives.
Alongside the Lowe’s community service scholarship is the Carl Buchan program which gives out (50) different $5,000 scholarships to deserving students. All applicants interested in this latter program will need to be high school seniors graduating or college undergrad students who have gone to school for at least one full time semester. This particular community service scholarship is reserved only for Lowe’s employees who have maintained a 3.25 gpa while also having a strong commitment to community service. The deadline for these to programs is normally in late February opening to interested applicants the prior year in mid-December.
Applicants to these community service scholarships and those like them will need to have a strong commitment. This sort of commitment rarely comes out of some interest in scoring points with scholarship committees later on. While not every applicant will have the 8,000 hour of community service the winner of the Christopher Reeve scholarship did, showing a strong dedication to helping those in need should be more than enough for many programs.
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