After a year of physical distancing due to the COVID-19 pandemic, The Alpine Woman’s Club had a chance to present scholarships in person on July 1 to three graduating seniors inside the historic town hall building.
Three scholarships worth $2,000 apiece were awarded to graduating Alpine students to use in furthering their education. Scholarship Chair Linda Whitlock said the pool of applicants this year was “stellar” and made it very hard for the committee to choose recipients this year.
Two of the students, Grace Heller and Jake Hamilton have known each other since sixth grade; Jake has known the third recipient, Jacob Saflar since kindergarten.
Jacob, 17, is a Granite Hills High School graduate and will be attending Baylor University as a biochemistry major. He plans to use the scholarship funds for a new computer to aid in his studies and ultimately wants to become a doctor.
Heller, 18, is a River Valley High School graduate and will be attending California Polytechnic State University where she plans to study biomedical engineering and work toward a career in prosthetic development.
“The prosthetics field is really expanding and I want to see what we can do next with movement and how we restore a sense of touch,” Heller said.
She plans to use her scholarship funds on textbooks, said she found out first-hand how expensive college texts can be when she took classes at Grossmont Community College this past year to get a head start on her college studies.
“I took calculus, statistics, physics— the majority of my first year is done,” Heller said.
Jake, also a River Valley High School graduate, will be attending University of California, Los Angeles as a business economics major.
At 17, he knows he wants to work with a “larger socially responsible company or possibly move into entrepreneurship and
start a socially responsible company” but has not decided exactly what field he wants to explore. He plans to use his scholarship funds to offset the cost of tuition.
awarded scholarships from the Alpine Woman’s Club in hand.
This year’s recipients pushed the total dollars given out by the club to over $152,000 in scholarships since the program began in 1950.
“Even though we were not able to complete our 2021 fundraisers, we are overjoyed to have been able to fully fund this year’s scholarship program. We are proud of our Alpine students,” Whitlock said.
