“Berries Support Scholarships” is the term around our Kiwanis Club meetings. It sure helped three very deserving young women who were awarded a total of $9,000 in scholarships this year, mainly supported by our berry sales.
Our club has sold berries for many years and awarded thousands of dollars in scholarships. It is very rewarding when our scholarship recipients return after their freshman year and relate how well they did. This leads me into highlighting a little bit about our current scholarship winners. It was a very difficult choice this year because we had such good candidates, but the final three were really exceptional young woman.
All students must have a good academic record to qualify for consideration for our scholarships, but community service is the key to make the cut. Here are some of the reasons these students won our scholarships:
Tatianna Finch has more than two pages of community service in her resume, as well as numerous school leadership positions, sports programs including soccer and cross country, Key Club membership, and support of our Kiwanis projects and local food banks. She worked hard to get good grades and still managed to work at Cup & Muffin to save money for college.
Tatianna was a member of 4H and raised champion pigs. When she sold her pigs, she donated part of her earnings to the Kiwanis food bank program. Tatianna’s last pig before she started high school was a beauty, and she donated the entire profit from her pig to ShareNet.
Jennifer Ryder is also a 4-H member and was in numerous leadership positions within the organization, such as assistant 4-H book superintendent. She supervised and participated in work parties that focused on painting and repairing the rabbit barn, which allowed Kitsap County to save some money.
Jennifer packaged meal bags for low-income youth and helped raise about $1,200 to purchase food to fill the meal bags and packed shoe boxes for Operation Christmas Child. She participated on mission trips with Newlife Church to Mexico and Belgium, painted houses and visited nursing homes. She was involved in school activities such as the Kingston High School Debate Team and her expository speech placed ninth at the state level. All this and good grades too.
Jennie Lemay volunteered many hours of her time as a Girl Scout, cleaning up Camp Lyle McLeod to make sure that the camp was ready for use.
She joined the Key Club at Kingston High School during her sophomore year and went to work organizing school monitors, lost and found procedures, cleaning hallways, and policing the school grounds. She raised money for UNICEF in October, and helped with the annual Kiwanis Halloween Carnival and the Kiwanis Apple Cup food drive. Jenny also worked at the February Kiwanis Gala, which supports the Boys and Girls Club, and participated in drug- and alcohol- prevention outreach programs at her school.
I could go on and on about these young people but there is not enough room in this article. Believe me when I say we have some really amazing young people in the Kingston area. Too bad we always hear about the small minority of young people that aren’t so community minded.
Each year, we trek up to the berry fields in Snohomish County in Kiwanis member Dave Wetter’s truck to bring back delicious, fresh blueberries, strawberries and raspberries. Dave and his sidekick, “Big” Larry Anderson, bring them home to Kingston, making sure we all have fresh berries. The buyer not only gets the satisfaction of supporting the young people in our community with scholarships, but the consumer is able to enjoy healthy and delicious treats all year.
It’s a great deal. Ten pounds of blueberries costs $34; much better than $4 dollars for six ounces. Go to www.greaterkingstonkiwanis.org to download the order form … YUM-YUM!
Strawberries will be delivered June 29 (15-pound container, $33), raspberries July 13 (14-pound container, $40), and blueberries July 27 (10-pound container, $34).
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We are looking for a few new members. Please contact our president, Pat-Bennett Forman, at 360-697-4849; or me, at 360-297-4462.
We also want to thank folks for their community service too in the form of giving funds for the Food for Kids Program, by attending the June 7 Benefit Concert and Beer Fest. There were well over 500 people at the event — great music, food and beer, and fabulous weather. We couldn’t have done it without donations, such as the music by the Blues Counselors; beer by Valholl, Sound, Der Blokken and Hood Canal breweries; peanuts from CB’s Nuts; and all the other local businesses that gave gifts for the raffle.
Thanks also goes to the Kingston-North Kitsap Rotary for the use of their tables and chairs and support, and the Port of Kingston for the use of their tent and Mike Wallace Park.
