At the May 19th meeting, Brent Voight, our club’s STRIVE director, presented scholarships to this year’s class of STRIVE students.
Mentor’s Choice & Perfect Attendance: Stephen Thomson, Jacob Marsnik, Ian Weisbrod, Alden Zeller, Clayton McGinley
Academic Improvement Scholarship: Ross Buerkley
In total, our club awarded $5,000 in scholarships. STRIVE (Students Taking Renewed Interest in the Value of Education) is a mentoring program for students at SAHS with emphasis on preparing for post-graduation opportunities and responsibilities while working to improve grade point average. The program's goal is to motivate interested Stillwater High School seniors to discover their own strengths and talents so as to increase their personal and academic achievement. Incentives are offered through scholarships for the students for their post graduate education. This year, we had 9 students and 16 mentors. Students and mentors met 16 times this year.
Front Row: Mel Sullivan, Gary Gerds, Del Peterson, Art Nesse, Back Row: Dean Tibbets, Jacob Marsnik, Ross Buerkley, Alden Zeller, Ted Nesse, Clayton McGinley, Ian Weisbrod, Mike Tate, Brent Voight
While STRIVE has traditionally been a program focused on seniors, we are making changes for next year. Two years ago we decided to start STRIVE during the spring of a student’s junior year so that we could hit the ground running in the fall of their senior year. However, feedback from students, mentors and school counselors encouraged us to start another year earlier, in the spring of a student’s sophomore year. This will give the mentors the opportunity to have a greater and longer lasting impact on the students we work with. This does mean STRIVE is expected to more than double in the number of students served each year, meaning we need to double or more the number of mentors to connect with the students.
Mentors are the key to this program's success by sharing their experiences, their knowledge and their advice to help these students make the most of their senior year. If interested in becoming an mentor, contact Brent.
We generally meet the first Wednesday of the month from 11:40-12:40 for lunch with a presentation about a topic to help the student build towards a successful experience in high school and beyond. The third Wednesday of the month we meet during the high school’s first period—generally 7:50-8:45 which is reserved for the mentors and students to meet with each other one on one.
The impact that a mentor can have on the life of a student is immeasurable. Students thrive when an adult shows up to be in their lives, without any sort of performance expectation, and shows that they genuinely care.
