Building a Better Community, One Scholarship at a Time
Join us for supper plus an opportunity to meet and learn about the deserving
scholars whom The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program supports. Please join
the celebration as our guest.
Thursday, May 17, 2018
5:30 p.m. Dinner followed by Program
Executive Office Building
101 Monroe Street
Rockville, MD 20950
Keynote Speaker and Community Service Awardee
Ruby Rubens
Written by Maryamawit Abate, 2017 Awardee
Like any new experience, entering college can seem scary or challenging. I too remember graduating high school and anxiously awaiting the start of my first semester of college. However, like any new experience, it is only a matter of time before you adjust. I hope that I can share the insight I have gained from my experience as a college student. Below, I have curated a list of advice for new college students.
The “I can’t do it” Syndrome
The situation may vary, but you may/will at some point doubt yourself. When such insecurity sets in, look around you and remember that most likely everyone has or has had a similar dilemma. The feeling may not go away quickly, but knowing that the people around you are experiencing similar things will hopefully let you know that, like everyone else, you will get through it.
Put You First
Whether it is as big as selecting a major or as small as picking a topic for a writing assignment, college can charge at you with options that require careful decision making. It can be a terrifying feeling figuring out what decision is best for you, but the one thing I advise when you are faced with making decisions is making sure that whatever decision you make, you do it for you and not anyone else.
One Size Does Not Fit All
You have probably heard from others that the college course load can be heavy and you will have to dedicate x hours each day to succeed in your classes. Hearing these kinds of things may scare you away, but don’t let it. Everything is terrifying until you try it. Rest assured that when the situation asks for it, you will most likely deliver. If others can do it, why can’t you? That is not to say, however, that you should compare yourself to others. In fact, I advise the contrary. Don’t ever compete with others. What may be for one person, may not be for you. The same goes for school. One method of studying that has worked for one person may not work for you. Therefore, when I say, “if others can do it why can’t you,” I mean to say that you can succeed with any amount of course load as long as you figure out what method of studying, time management, etc. works best for you.
General Tips
Dear Important Friend and Supporter of The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program:
On March 14, The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program (“The Bernie”) held a successful and moving “Friend Raiser.” I write to tell you a bit about it (for those not able to join us then), and also to ask you to save the date for our next big event—the Bernie Scholarship Awards Celebration on Thursday, May 17, 2018, 5:30-8:30 pm in Rockville.
At our Friend Raiser, friends and supporters of The Bernie joined for dinner and an update from key members of our Board and, most importantly, from three of our wonderfully inspirational Bernie Award Scholars.
Gracing the Friend Raiser with their presence were Bernie Scholars Maryamawit Abate (a sophomore in nursing at Montgomery College); Yvette Hammonds (a single mom employed in Community Health and a new homeowner; supported in part by Bernie Scholarship Awards, she successfully completed her Bachelor’s degree and is now working on her Master’s) and Kimberly Hanson, the daughter of a single mom, she completed her Bachelor’s degree in biology with help from The Bernie Scholarships and is now working on her Master’s; she is also the newest member of our Bernie Board. Each, in her own right, is extraordinary in her demonstrated persistence, achievements, grace and presence. Each is committed also to “giving back,” and each is a fine representative of the more than 300 Bernie Scholars who have received over 450 Awards over the 22 years of our program’s history (and counting) totaling over one-half million dollars (and counting).
Friends and Supporters in attendance at the Friend Raiser also were brought up to date about key findings of the third-party Program Effectiveness Studies completed by our expert outside consultant through the use of Award Recipient Surveys and other data. Those findings noted that over two-thirds of our Scholars (all in low-income Montgomery County families residing in subsidized housing) are women, almost 70% are African-American (with an additional 14% Latino), and that 87% of our Scholars confirm that The Bernie Scholarship Award is and has been important in their ability to enroll and remain enrolled in their higher learning pursuits. Indeed, as our Scholars also re-confirmed at the Friend Raiser, this kind and amount of “closing the financial gap” funding is critically important and undoubtedly accounts for another key finding of our Study: That 98% of our Scholars (as opposed to far lower percentages of those without our Scholarship support) persist and complete their educational goals and dreams.
Our Friend Raiser program was brought to a close by Bernie Tetreault (who shares more than just a first name with the program), who described both the reasons he founded the program and continues to seek funding opportunities available to help support and keep it growing. (More information about all of which may be found on our website at www.berniescholarships.org.)
To that end, we are very pleased to announce that if you are also moved and want to add your financial support to those who pledged theirs at the Friend Raiser, you may do so using the links below:
And, as a “special incentive” for you to do so quickly, please know that every donor who completes and returns the attached Donor Card within five days of this Update will be listed as a Sponsor of the “2018 Friend Raiser Scholarship” that will be awarded during our upcoming Awards Celebration of the new 2018 Scholars.
So, please do consider, complete and promptly return our Donor Card, and plan on joining us on May 17 at our Awards Celebration.
We do so very much appreciate your continuing support of The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program, as do our 300 Scholars to date and scores more to follow (with your continuing and generous support) in their footsteps.
NOTE: Please think of people you know who may like to learn about The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program, so we can invite more people to our upcoming free Awards Celebration on May 17th. This would be very helpful in raising the program’s visibility.
Are you a high school senior? Looking for a college? Make your choice by May 1st Decision Day! Tips:
· College should offer a variety of academic programs outside your major
· Choose where you can find mentors & networks to obtain internships & engagement with peers and faculty
· Ask how many 1st-year classes are taught by full-time professors
· Find out about how student advising works to guide your choices of classes & majors
· Visit a class or two
· Look into the college’s financial aid offers
Michael Abraha just finished his junior year at Mount St. Mary’s. He is majoring in political science. He would like to pursue a MBA in business management. He believes that best way to influence the world is to have wealth in the right hands.
Tiffany Dicks is currently a sophomore at Montgomery College. She is pursuing her Associates degree in graphic design. She is currently a freelance graphic designer.
Serena Spickler is a 2017 graduate of Watkins Mill High School. She will be attending the University of Maryland Baltimore County in the fall. She plans to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in biomedical engineering. She would like to combine her interest in math, science and design to create prosthetic limbs for people in need.
Moving is always a disruptive event even for adults. But for a young girl in school it can be especially traumatic. One day you’re in a comfortable place, in a familiar school with friends who know and like you; the next, everything’s different and you have to start over again. Definitely not something you want to do often. In Chevonne Mansfield’s young life, though, moves were all too common. In her elementary and middle school years alone, she moved five times to different locations on Long Island, attending multiple elementary and two middle schools. The way she overcame these disruptions and achieved academic and career success is a testimonial to her brains, strength, and the support of her family.
Chevonne was a child of teenage parents who separated when she was young. Nevertheless, her mother and grandmother continually impressed upon her the need to work hard in school and to get as much education as possible. She took this to heart and compiled an exemplary record in school. That, plus financial support for scholarships like the Bernie Scholarship Awards Program (BSAP), contributed in a big way to her success.
Her mother remarried when Chevonne was 12 and she eventually moved to Wheaton in Montgomery County where she enrolled at Albert Einstein High School. Her distributed family now includes 11 siblings—eight in Maryland and three in South Florida.
Ms. Mansfield was always willing to challenge herself in school. She had taken two honors courses in middle school in New York, and at Einstein and later at Watkins Mill HS in Gaithersburg, completed a number of Advanced Placement (AP) courses, including Spanish her favorite subject. Her combined HS GPA was 3.4, unweighted, with a weighted average of over 4.0.
She hoped to go back to New York for college—still considering it as “home”—and was accepted and awarded a partial scholarship by St. John’s University (SJU) in 2000. Even with that aid, she still needed supplementary financial help to afford St. John’s where yearly tuition was over $20,000, even 16 years ago. In this early Internet era, getting information about scholarships was much harder to find than it is now. But a helpful guidance counselor at Watkins Mill tipped her off about the BSAP. Application processes were also paper-intensive, but Chevonne overcame these difficulties and eventually became a three-time Bernie Scholarship awardee. In addition, she received Pell grants and an NAACP scholarship and participated in a work-study program. The bottom line—and it’s impressive—is that Ms. Mansfield was able to get both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees without incurring a single cent of student loan debt.
Building on skills and credits earned in her HS Spanish AP course, Chevonne began as a Spanish major at St. John’s with the goal of becoming an interpreter at the United Nations. But she soon realized that working as an interpreter might not be her calling. One of her work-study assignments was in the SJU Athletic Department where she was introduced to the field of college sports management and displayed a natural affinity for it, leading to her eventual career field choice. She spent a semester abroad at the University of Leicester in the U.K. in a program dedicated to International Sports Management. While there, she helped organize, develop and implement a co-ed intramural basketball league.
Chevonne graduated from SJU in 2004 with a B.S. in Communications. She looked at a number of job possibilities—turning down an offer for an entry level position at a major TV network—but couldn’t find the right fit and instead took a Graduate Assistantship in the Athletic Department at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore (UMES) where she earned an M.S. in Criminal Justice in 2007, compiling a 3.9 GPA with just one B in three years.
Her Master’s degree in hand, Ms. Mansfield embarked on a series of increasingly more responsible jobs in collegiate sports information. From 2007 to 2010, she served as Assistant Sports Information Director (SID) at Howard University. From there she moved south to Birmingham, Alabama, her frequent childhood moves making the adjustment a bit easier. She worked as Assistant Director of Communications for the Southwestern Athletic Conference (SWAC) until 2011 when she landed the position of Assistant Director for Media Relations for the Southeastern Conference (SEC), one of the most successful and renowned conferences in the NCAA.
Her work at the SEC brought her attention from the founders of the newly formed American Athletic Conference, headquartered in Providence, Rhode Island, where she was appointed Director of Communications. The conference includes teams covering a broad geographic span of the country, from the U.S. Naval Academy and Temple University in the northeast, to Tulane University and the University of Houston in the south. One of its prominent members is the University of Connecticut Huskies whose women’s basketball team just established a new record with its 93rd consecutive victory.
This geographic dispersion of conference members presents unique circumstances in conveying a unified message to the media and the local communities. Chevonne has two assistants as direct reports. Her team is responsible for outreach PR to the media and conference communities and vendor management, and also is the contact for Women’s Basketball, Men’s Soccer, and Golf. In addition to her demanding job, she somehow found the “spare time” to teach a course in Sports Events and Facilities at Johnson and Wales University.
As her career has progressed, Ms. Mansfield has received a number of significant awards and distinctions, including:
§ Graduating from the NCAA Leadership Institute (one of 10 women and 22 overall);
§ Receiving a Rising Star Award from the College Sports Information Directors of America (CoSIDA);
§ Serving as a member of the Boards of Directors for CoSIDA and the Association for Women’s Sports Media;
§ Facilitating the NCAA Student Athlete Leadership Forum;
§ Giving the keynote speech at the 2016 BSAP awards celebration; and
§ Serving as a panelist or moderator a host of national conferences or conventions, including the CoSIDA and AWSM conventions and the Sports Industry Networking and Career Conference.
One of Chevonne’s favorite quotes is from golf champion Jack Nicklaus: “Sometimes the biggest problem is in your head. You’ve got to believe.” That pretty much sums up the philosophy that has guided her life since childhood. Rather than complain about frequent moves and other distractions, she confronted and conquered all these challenges, and has already accomplished much both in education and in her career.
But stay tuned! We’ve probably just seen the tip of the iceberg as far as her achievements go. Ms. Mansfield is really a model for all future BSAP awardees to follow—someone who parlayed her talents, motivation, and drive first into a highly successful academic foundation and then into a rewarding career.
Gene Ford, Sr., a long-time donor and supporter of The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program (BSAP), has made a $100,000 bequest to The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program. Mr. Ford’s company Mid-City produced thousands of housing units throughout the Washington-Baltimore region that served many low-income residents. He recognized that people were not poor by choice and that housing in itself would not substantially change their lives. As a result, he led the way in adding housing services in Mid-City Developments and the Community Preservation Development Corporation, a non-profit that he formed.
Realizing his sincere commitment to changing the lives of low-income people, The Bernie Scholarship Awards Program honored Mr. Ford with our Community Service Award in 2001. At the awards ceremony he listened to the inspiring stories of those receiving scholarships and recognized that education of these scholars was breaking the cycle of poverty. He became a benefactor of the BSAP until his death and now even beyond.
Serena G. Spickler 2017 Awardee
The school year at UMBC has been great so far! I made plenty of friends within the STEM field in the Center for Women in Technology Living Learning Community in my building. I have been very studious and dedicated toward my success at this school, since this campus focuses primarily on academics, as opposed to having a focus on parties and social events.
I still have been able to make time for some social activities, including getting more involved with the Jewish youth organization on campus, Hillel. I began an internship with Hillel this month, where I help plan social events that unite the Jewish community with other organizations on campus. I am really enjoying my involvement with Hillel so far!
I have also joined a research study on campus that involves studying brain waves and their connection to different parts of the body to perform different functions. I am very excited to begin my work with this research program on Thursday, as I feel it will help me figure out if I still want to pursue biomedical engineering.
Delphina Amon-Kotey 2017 Awardee
I wanted to check in and say thank you for granting me this scholarship. It helped my dad and I be able to pay for this semester without taking out too many loans. The semester is going well. I plan on applying again for the next awards.
In this issue:
– The First Lady of Montgomery County, Catherine Leggett, Speaks on Ending the Cycle of Poverty
– In Their Own Words, Updates from Our Awardees
– Fund A Scholar