Six Harvard-Kent Students Awarded Scholarships

The 6th Annual Harvard-Kent Leadership & Scholarship Partnership Awards Presentation was held Thursday morning in the school’s auditorium.

All the school children, with the exception of those in kindergarten and first grade, were in the hall; second graders sat on the floor next to the stage while children in the other grades filled the seats. They were joyful, exuberant and excited.

Mr. Richard Martin, principal of Harvard-Kent seemed as excited as the children were. After they had recited both the Pledge of Allegiance and the P.R.I.D.E. Pledge, (Harvard-Kent's own declaration), Martin further challenged the children with math computations, followed by his exhortation to “rock MCAS.”

Every year Harvard-Kent awards scholarships of $1,000 to six students: two from each grade, third through fifth. The choice of winners is based, "not only on scholarship," Jane Philippi explained, but also on "leadership and community participation." Philippi is a past president of the Scholarship Partnership Board.

Philippi further explained that the $1,000 award is kept in a bank account for each child, to gather interest until the student begins college.  This is perhaps their first college "seed money."

Several elected officials, including Mayor Thomas Menino and City Council Vice-President Sal LaMattina were on stage, along with members of the education community, most notably Dr. Carol R. Johnson, Superintendent of Boston Public Schools.

Menino said this awards event is "one of the highlights of the school year." Steven Murphy, president of the City Council, recited a poem with the refrain, "Believe in yourselves, believe in your dreams."

After the speeches were given, the six winners were announced. None of the students knew ahead of time, so there was great anticipation and squeals of delight as each name was announced and each student came to the stage. Family members also came to join the winning students who each received a giant $1,000 check. 

The winners were Raymond Zinn and Anisa from the third grade; Win Ye Kao and Laura Vasquez from the fourth grade and Jonathan Chin and Tosha Lee Rivera from the fifth grade. Each proudly held the mammoth check for photo ops, then took a seat among past recipients on the stage.

Principal Martin reminded each student in the hall that they are all winners, and that they can meet the challenge to be excellent. He quoted to the children from one of the many sayings on the auditorium wall: “Learning is a treasure that will follow the owner everywhere.”

After the awards presentation, there was a reception for the winners and their families in the Harvard-Kent Library.