Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island presents scholarship awards

Published 10:18 am Saturday, May 30, 2015

The Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island has announced the recipients of its 2015 Community Service Scholarships.

These scholarships are awarded to high school seniors, living on Bainbridge, who have engaged in exemplary service and made a positive impact on their community during their high school career.

The scholarship winners are Carly D’Amato, Kelly Coffyn, Emma Covert, Maxsena Butler, Hannah Myrick, Kate Matthews, Emma Spickard, Ricky Perry, Trevor Maine, Taliesin Black-Brown, Nicholas Dresel and Ben LaRoche.

The Rotary Club also honored BHS math teacher Brad Lewis, who founded the Social Justice League, and BHS senior Grayson Wildsmith, who has been the league’s president for two years.

The Social Justice League is a BHS club devoted to learning about and engaging in community service. Every Friday for the last four years, a contingent of club members has traveled to the Compass Center, a homeless shelter in Seattle, where they spend the evening preparing and serving dinner.

Among them, this year’s scholarship recipients logged thousands of hours of community service.

Tally Black-Brown (a pediatric cancer survivor), Maxsena Butler and Ben LaRoche all serve on the Junior Board of the Make Some Noise: Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation and were instrumental in organizing a 2014 fundraiser that raised $75,000 for childhood cancer research at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Kate Matthews earned a Girl Scout Gold Award by creating a community garden at two low-income housing facilities on Bainbridge Island.

Kelly Coffyn leads a weekly Younglife group of more than 20 eighth-grade girls.

Trevor Maine has put in more than 500 hours as a volunteer assistant counselor at the Bainbridge Island Boys & Girls Club.

Nick Dresel served for five years as a volunteer “peer-buddy” for TOPSoccer, a program that provides young people with disabilities the opportunity to learn and play soccer.

Carly D’Amato serves on the board of Camp Siberia/Kitezh, and has made two trips to Russia with the program.

Hannah Myrick has volunteered hundreds of hours at the Bainbridge Island Library, including seven years in the Reading Buddy program, in which she read to children not yet reading on their own. She is also a member of the Teen Advisory Board.

Ricky Perry is ASB President at BHS and spearheaded this April’s Unity Week, which raised awareness of cyber-bullying and culminated in an assembly featuring a nationally recognized speaker telling the story of his family’s experience with cyber-bullying.

Emma Spickard is an officer for BHS’s National Honor Society Club and Social Justice League, and a student member of the Bainbridge Ometepe Sister Island Association.

Emma Covert and Maxsena Butler are co-presidents of BHS’s Interact Club, which is sponsored by the Rotary Club.

Last year, members of the Interact Club traveled to Guatemala to visit several water and sanitation projects being performed by various Rotary Clubs in the area with help from the Rotary Club of Bainbridge Island.  Interact’s global youth network is dedicated to community and international service.

Funding for the Rotary Club’s Scholarships come from net proceeds of the annual Rotary Auction & Rummage Sale. The 2015 Auction & Rummage Sale is June 27 at Woodward Middle School.  For details, visit www.BainbridgeRotaryAuction.org.