Photo by Sean Quinn
Above, scholarship recipients and Columbia High School Scholarship Fund trustees gather June 11 at the high school. The fund gave $165,000 to 107 CHS seniors and alumni to help them pursue higher education.
MAPLEWOOD/SOUTH ORANGE, NJ — The Columbia High School Scholarship Fund granted $165,000 worth of scholarships to 107 graduating seniors and alumni at its award ceremony in the CHS Library on June 11.
This is the largest sum the fund has been able to give away in its 92-year history, according to CHSSF President Joan Lee, significantly adding to the fund’s legacy; more than $1 million in scholarship dollars have been awarded since it was founded in 1923. The CHSSF’s goal of raising more than the $140,000 it granted last year was reached this year, and Lee pointed out that the fund will strive to give even more next year.
Monetary goals aside, Lee said what matters most to the fund is that, through its work, Columbia High School students are given the chance to pursue their dreams of higher education.
“School is so prohibitively expensive for many of our students,” Lee told the News-Record prior to the ceremony. “Anything that we can do to help them — even if it’s just buying books — and to show them that someone believes in them, is really important.”
Any past or present CHS student intending to pursue some form of higher education — whether a four-year university, a technical program or a medical school — can apply for one of the CHSSF need-based scholarships with a transcript and a tax return. The fund’s selection committee then picks as many applicants as financially feasible, choosing those who have demonstrated they are both academically serious and fiscally worthy. This year 119 applications were submitted, Lee said.
But the scholarship recipients are not just names on an application to the fund trustees, according to CHSSF Vice President Brigid Casey. Casey said that the trustees, all of whom are volunteers and CHSSF parents themselves, are actually emotionally invested in the students as they reapply each year and report on their educational progress. In effect, she said talking about the applicants becomes like discussing family.
“You do develop a really personal, warm feeling about them because you know these kids and you know how hard they work,” Casey told the News-Record while setting up for the event. “We feel real pride in what they do.”
And judging from the scholarship recipients who attended the ceremony, the fund’s generosity is certainly appreciated.
Graduating senior Brandon Jones said his $1,500 scholarship will be a “big help” to him and his parents, who he said are working overtime to help him pay for college. Jones, who plans to attend a county college for two years before moving on to Kean University to study game design and development, added that the money is an incentive to work diligently as he pursues his degree.
“It just gives me a lot more motivation in school,” Jones told the News-Record. “Now that I’ve got this, it takes a lot of stress off me.”
Samantha Fagundez, who recently received her second $1,500 scholarship from the fund, knows well the benefits of the fund’s money. Having just finished her first year at Rutgers University, where she is majoring in ecology with a specialization in wetland ecology, Fagundez said the money is essential in helping her pay for classes.
Fagundez expressed gratitude to CHS for offering a fund for its students, pointing out that it should not be taken for granted.
“Here you always hear about the CHS Scholarship Fund, and it’s a big thing in our community,” Fagundez told the News-Record. “But when I tell people at school that I got a scholarship through my high school, they’re so impressed with that because it’s not a common thing for high schools to have that. And the fact that we do shows just how much Columbia is trying to put forward its students.”
Fagundez is not the only one in her family to benefit from the CHSSF. Her mother, Corey Ayala-Fagundez, told the News-Record that her older daughter was able to graduate from college thanks in large part to the fund’s scholarships, and now works as a schoolteacher in Newark.
Seeing the impact the CHSSF has had on her children, Ayala-Fagundez said she is beyond thankful. “Words cannot explain it,” Ayala-Fagundez said. “It’s made the difference. It made it a possibility for them to go.”
Yet none of that benefit would be possible without the generosity of the South Orange-Maplewood community, Trustee Madeline Tugentman told the News-Record. Tugentman, who serves as co-chairwoman of the development committee, said the fund is proud to receive the support of numerous residents and local organizations impassioned to help CHS students, many of whom do not even have children at the school. The fact that the CHSSF has been so successful through the years demonstrates the giving nature of the community, she said.
“Maplewood and South Orange come together for the children’s sake,” Tugentman told the News-Record prior to the ceremony. “Everybody is helping put the graduates through school. It’s wonderful.
“The community gives so selflessly and generously,” she continued. “And that is just awe-inspiring.”
One of the fund’s most loyal donors is the Bass Foundation, a Maplewood-based nonprofit dedicated to meeting the needs of underserved communities. Executive Director Peggy Barnett told the News-Record that the foundation donated $15,000 and three laptop computers to the fund this year. As the mother of two CHS graduates, Barnett said she knows firsthand how well the school prepares its students for higher education, so helping graduates follow through and attend college means a lot to her organization.
“We want to give these kids a chance to do their best, to succeed, to know that they are supported and that they can reach for the stars just as well as someone who has more money,” Barnett said before the event started. “Every year we meet the students here that are the recipients of the scholarship and we feel that it is money very, very well-spent.”
Donor Jacqueline L. Cusack not only wanted to help the students of CHS — she felt obliged to give back. Cusack, who served as the event’s guest speaker as well as being a fund trustee and former assistant superintendent of the South Orange-Maplewood School District, said everyone with the financial means capable should help young people get their start in life because they are the ones who will further society in the future. And in turn, she said those students benefited today should support the next generation.
Right now, though, Cusack urged the students to be trailblazers as they embark on the next phase of their lives. Instead of following the crowd and making decisions to please others, she encouraged them to use their scholarships to follow their own dreams.
Because it is only by creating a new path that you can truly help those who follow, Cusack said.
“Our young people have so many gifts to give,” Cusack told the News-Record after the ceremony. “It is important that they feel valued as contributors to society and not just takers. We want them of course to accept these scholarships to help them get on their feet. But we want them to turn this into a step that allows them to be on the giving end, the problem-solving end, the end of creating new opportunities for others that follow.
“This is about improving our world,” she continued. “It’s about making it better not only for those of us who will be alive to appreciate it when these young people gear up to be trailblazers, but to make it better for those who follow.”
To contribute to the CHSSF, visit http://www.chssf.org/.