Scholarship agencies are very interested in investing their own hard-earned funds to help students that want to constructively use their time and knowledge to bring positive changes to their communities. Scholarship organizations look quite favorably upon candidates that can also provide a history and letters of recommendations that shows having served others, even though they have not started attending college.

When I serve as a consultant to scholarship application review committees I always recommend that we preferentially fund those students who have participated in paid or volunteer services (for example, helping the homeless and low income families, planting trees, supporting fundraising efforts to help people devastated by earthquakes and floods throughout the world, volunteering and work with peer counseling, suicide prevention and violence meditation projects-this is of course only a partial
list).

The reason for this point of view of awarding those that serve others goes back to a real life experience I once had when I was a member of a scholarship agency's candidate-interviewing committee. We would interview the applicant with the highest overall grades, asking him of her if he had ever done any volunteer work: the answer was most often "no". When going on to ask to they would do if they won the scholarship and thus complete the college education, a usual response was some form of "to get rich and then sit around and enjoy my money for the rest of my life". Although we pointed out that scholarship monies being applying for came from other persons who did not have a great deal of money but contributed anyway, it still did not seem to impress the notion that the scholarship had not been created only to improve personal pleasure and lifestyle. Upon such students' leaving the room, all the members of the panel looked at one other and started laughing, and it goes without saying that such a student became the candidate least likely to win. They clearly demonstrated no understanding whatsoever of why the scholarship had been created and was being offered in the first place.

I recently met a wonderful individual, who happens to be the newest receipient of the nationally recognized Coca-Cola Scholars Program. He shared his personal story with me, mentioning that although his high school grades could have been higher, he applied regardless. I also learned that he was born with a visual learning disability. He explained how he was going to take, despite others telling him that he had an almost impossible barrier to overcome, his own circumstance and work to encourage
others with similar circumstances to also attend college. He was helping others while he was in high school, and even though he was attending college he continued volunteering during his weekends to do presentations to whoever would listen about how they can also overcome similar barriers.

Several scholarship agencies offered to help a young lady whom I now know as a high school senior. She learned to play the violin when she was 8 years old, offering two or three hours each Sunday and holidays to play for local senior citizen centers. She has been doing this volunteer work for 9 years. It is easy to understand why seven out of eight agencies she applied to awarded her a scholarship. I talked to three of the organizations that had provided her with funding, and through our discussion they shared that her academic performance was very good but that they were especially happy to help her as a reward for all the volunteer work she has been performing. "She has proven herself over all these years that she has some God-given talents, and that she shares them", one official shared. "We feel that once she graduates from college, she will find new ways to sharing those talents with many, and will also be a positive role model to others".

Getting high grades is important but students that can use their skills and knowledge for the benefit of others have earned the support of the community that they have been helping, and merit the scholarship they have created for such individuals.