GREENFIELD — Greenfield students received more than $45,000 in scholarships from local businesses and non-profit organizations during the 17th annual Scholarship Night on April 21 to put toward their educational goals.
“Tonight we have the opportunity to recognize the time, work, and commitment you have all dedicated to your future success,” Principal Frank Lynch said. “To our donors and community members we thank you for freely giving time, energy, and resources that could help our students reach for a future they may otherwise be unable to attain.”
Among those businesses and individuals that presented scholarships was Carlos Villagomez, who gave out three scholarships in memory of his father who worked in the agricultural fields and three scholarships in memory of his brother who was killed in an accident but was always a student athlete.
The recipients for the Carlos Villagomez scholarship were Evelyn Meza, Celeste Castro and Andres Villagomez. The recipients for the Angel Villagomez Memorial scholarship were Emmanuel Morquecho-Chavarria, Apolinar De Jesus and Adriana Vieyra.
“We had a really tough selection you guys,” Carlos Villagomez said. “We were initially going to give out four scholarships but we decided to go with six.”
The Dean French Scholarships were presented by Dee Heckman and Joy Flores. According to Flores, Dean French was a teacher who raised money by selling sodas after school in his classroom. French took over the soda vending machine at Vista Verde and made the decision to put the proceeds toward scholarships.
“The GTA, teachers union has taken it over and they have now continued the tradition by donating the money for that scholarship,” Flores said.
One of the universal consensus from all the scholarship donors was that the graduating seniors had really good interview, which made the decision tough to select the original number of recipients. The GTA was no exception, giving out four $500 scholarships to Aaron Oyoque, Anthony Camacho, Emily Tavernetti and Thomas Telles.
Scholarships were given out by TNT Insurance, Green’s Accounting, Greenfield Village, the Greenfield Rotary Club and the Rotary Foundation, in addition to a scholarship given out by the principal and many more.
