By gloria stravelli
Staff Writer
Madeline Bennett
It’s not just financial aid that recipients get from the scholarships awarded by the Eastern Monmouth Area Chamber of Commerce in Red Bank. The $1,000 awards affirm the paths followed by the nontraditional students in working toward their goals.
"As nice as the money is, as much as I can use the funds, the scholarship provides the incentive of knowing that a group of people like this is behind what I want to do," said Kevin Hall last week. "It’s really validating. It says, ‘You know something? We agree with what you want to do.’ "
Hall, Red Bank, and eight other students following alternate routes to degrees were awarded scholarships by the EMACC’s Educational Foundation last week. The awards are aimed at helping students who are often overlooked by traditional scholarship programs.
"We know $1,000 is significant to the students because college is so expensive these days," Educational Foundation Chair Linda Milstein told those attending the awards ceremony held at the Red Bank Woman’s Club. "What we also learned is that the scholarship has a lot more meaning to the recipients than we could have anticipated at the start quite apart from the monetary value."
Kristin Chandler
In its fifth year, the EMACC scholarship program is designed to provide aid to students in three nontraditional categories: students transitioning from two-year to four-year colleges; adults over age 25 returning to school after an interrupted academic career; and students in post-high school vocational training.
In addition to Hall, scholarship recipients are Madeline Bennett, Atlantic Highlands; Kristin Chandler and Kaitlin Wolkum, both Rumson; Carole Daly, Freehold; Debra Ann Lyons, Middletown; Jo Ann Rountree, Fair Haven; Elizabeth Rowland, Red Bank; and Louis Scaturro, Matawan.
To date, the chamber has awarded $33,000 to 29 students who might otherwise not be eligible for aid, with the funds coming from the silent auction at the chamber’s annual Spinnaker Awards dinner.
Hall is picking up a thread that stretches back to his formative years in his online studies with Thomas Edison College.
Carole Daly
"Ever since I was a little child, I wanted to be a teacher," he explained. "I’ve always taken courses toward a degree, and my wife finally said, ‘Why don’t you put it all together and get a teaching degree?’ "
Sponsored by Robin Riddle of NJ Natural Gas Co., Hall wants to become a teacher in an Abbott District for preschool children and those in primary grades. He is currently an addiction counselor with Catholic Charities in Asbury Park.
I love it and I’m good at it. I’ve seen lots of people get better," he said. "Now everybody understands you don’t have to live with your addiction anymore."
A returning student, Bennett is working toward a degree in human services at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, where she recently capped her first semester by being named to the dean’s list. The mother of four segued from being a volunteer with 180 Turning Lives Around to a staff position at the agency, which aids victims of domestic abuse and sexual assault.
Jo Ann Rountree
"They ask me how do I know so much," said Bennett, who applies her own life experience to her work with victims of domestic abuse. "I say, ‘I was you.’ When I start to tell them, they begin to understand. I say, ‘You see, I was you, and soon you’re going to be me.’ "
Sponsored by Lori Sadwith of 180 Turning Lives Around, Bennett began volunteering with the Hazlet-based agency two years ago and is called "The 180 Lady" because she has worked in every part of the agency, from the shelter for women and children to the hotline to the resale boutique.
The EMACC scholarship, she said, will help lighten the load.
"I work 50-60 hours a week just to keep the mortgage going," she said. "This just takes a big chunk out of it. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me besides my children."
Louis Scaturro and Kevin Hall
Chandler, a repeat winner, will begin her junior year at a new college in September. The print journalism major is transferring to Brookdale from the University of South Carolina where she worked on the college newspaper. Sponsored by Milstein, vice president-outreach, business and community development at Brookdale, she plans to write about fashion and trends for women’s magazines.
Chandler agreed with those who said the scholarship does more than help pay the tuition bill.
"The monetary amount is helpful," she said, "but it’s great to know that for the second year in a row the chamber believes in me and is supporting me in my education."
She used to be squeamish, but being a student in a nursing program changed all that for Wolkum.
Elizabeth Rowland
"I used to hate the sight of blood," admitted the Rumson-Fair Haven Regional High School graduate. Now that she has completed a nursing program offered by the Monmouth County Vocational School District, she plans to pursue a degree in nursing at Brookdale. Sponsored by Catherine Dillon of the Monmouth County Vocational School District, Wolkum wants to be a pediatric nurse.
"The scholarship will be a huge help," she said.
The scholarship funds will help Daly advance her marketing career at Wilentz, Goldman & Spitzer, the Woodbridge law firm that sponsored her for the award.
"I’m hoping it will enable me to advance in marketing. Once you have a degree, you move up," she observed. The scholarship will help pay her tuition at Kean University, Union, where she expects to graduate in two years.
Rountree is membership marketing director at the Community YMCA in Red Bank. She is returning to college studies after earning an associate’s degree in 1999. Sponsored by Dick Pollack, of the Community Y, Rountree will pursue a degree in marketing at the Garret Mountain campus of Berkeley College, West Paterson. She joined the Y in 1995 and immediately knew she was in the right place.
"When I landed this job it was a true fit," she said. "Members responded to me, and pleasing members makes me happy. It’s not just a job. I consider my team a family."
Like the other recipients, Rountree will benefit from a scholarship award that aims to help students who often are overlooked by traditional scholarship programs.
"I don’t qualify for aid, so everything is student loans," she explained. "This will help defray some of the costs."
Straight out of high school, Rowland tried college but decided it wasn’t for her. But volunteering at her children’s school opened up a new path.
"I learned I loved being with kids and wanted to teach," she recounted. "I love to watch them change and grow and learn, and to see their faces when they actually get it. It’s kind of exciting to convince them they can do it."
For the past two years, she has worked as a paraprofessional in a classroom for autistic students and, after an 18-year hiatus, resumed college studies at Brookdale. In September, she’ll transfer to Monmouth University, West Long Branch, to pursue an education degree with a focus on special education.
Sponsored by Sylvia Allen of Allen Consulting, Holmdel, Rowland said the scholarship will ease the burden of college tuition.
"It’s a bit of a bill, and this will put a dent in it," she noted.
Scaturro will likely be found some day in a science lab at a high school.
Teaching science is the plan after he completes studies for an electrical engineering degree.
Sponsored by Athena John Baptiste at Brookdale, Scaturro has completed the first leg of his studies at Brookdale and will transfer to Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, or New Jersey Institute of Technology, Newark, in the fall.
He has been working as a substitute teacher in Old Bridge and plans to teach science at the middle or high school level.
The scholarship will chip away at high tuition bills, he said.
"Any help I can get is important," he noted. "Tuition can run as high as $26,000 a year, so $1,000 really helps with the books for this semester."
Debra Ann Lyons, Middletown, a two-time winner who wasn’t present at the ceremony, was sponsored by Horton S. Hickerson, certified public accountant.
"The people who won these scholarships are so inspiring to us," said Milstein. "All of us on the board, as we read their essays, were moved to tears and cheers.
"We had 30 applications, the highest number ever, and could only choose nine. We chose nine totally unique people. Our community will be so much richer when they finish their education and go out into it."