Despite an ongoing effort to meet its 2022 fundraising goal, the Frankfort Rotary Youth Fund and its corporate partners, Frankfort Plant Board and Burch Court Dental, awarded nine local high school graduates with $2,000 scholarships to pursue additional training and education that will help them meet their career goals.

“Although we’re only at 75% of this year’s fundraising goal, we’re extremely fortunate to have a wide range of individual donors as well as generous partners like the Frankfort Plant Board and Burch Court Dental.  These contributions along with the ability to tap into our savings allowed us to support a full slate of outstanding students from area high schools,” said Bill Scott, chair of the youth fund.

“As a publicly-owned municipal utility, it is important to recognize the value of postsecondary education in our community and the need to foster local students into the workforce,” said Frankfort Plant Board General Manager Gary Zheng.  “We appreciate the foresight of our Board of Directors and the partnership with the Rotary Club of Frankfort as we support our youth and encourage students to explore studies in career and technical education.”

“Our practice has always focused on community involvement and education. The Rotary scholarships allow us to directly help students better themselves through education which undoubtedly helps the community and, ultimately the future,” stated Dr. Will Renshaw, co-owner of Burch Court Dental.

This year’s recipients represent a wide range of careers including engineering, nursing, welding, dental hygiene, paralegal, and construction technology.  Applicants are rated on academic achievement, student leadership and community involvement as well as financial need.  The review process seeks to strike a balance between students pursuing technical and industry certifications and those choosing more academic careers.“ In order to get the word out to potential applicants, we work closely with the guidance counselors from each high school as well as the staff of the Career and Technical Center,” said Scott.

In 1993, the Frankfort Rotary Club identified children and youth as its signature service priority and established a separate tax deductible organization to raise funds for scholarships to local students. In the ensuing 29 years, the Rotary Youth Fund and its partners have awarded scholarships to over 200 local graduates.  The current members of the Youth Fund Board are RB Brown, Steve Dooley, Andrew Kent, Melinda Nunley, Sherry Sebastian, Diane Dehoney, and Bill Scott.