Description

The Sicilian Cultural Association (SCA) Scholarship Program is intended for high school seniors who have a parent/grandparent/great grandparent who is an active SCA member in good standing. The student must have attended any SCA event(s) in the past and has applied and been accepted to an accredited college, university or trade school. The student must write an essay of a minimum 500 and maximum of 1,000 words. In addition, the applicant shall describe their record of service to their school and/or community and college goals. The applicant shall indicate how important their Sicilian heritage has been, how they hope to utilize it in the future, the extent of their involvement with the Sicilian Cultural Association and why do they feel they should receive this money. 

Revenue generated from regular raffle sales at our monthly meetings will be reserved to fund this program. For the past two years this raffle has generated been between $1,345 to $2,144 for the Sicilian Cultural Association. If sufficient funds are not generated by this raffle, the remainder of up to $2,000 will come from our treasury. This will be a promotional tool at our monthly meetings to aid in ticket sales. We are offering two $1,000 scholarships per year.  If we do not have two essay nominations or two that are approved, funds will stay in our treasury.

Essays from high school seniors should be submitted without names (they will be assigned a code) along with an application form and a letter of recommendation to an SCA Officer or Board Member and forwarded to the Program Director (or designee) to present by the April SCA meeting or, in lieu of a meeting, by April 1. Essays will be forwarded to an outside scholarship review team for detailed reviewing and grading. The essays will then be presented/discussed/chosen by a majority approval of the Officers and Board members at the April Board meeting (via meeting or emails/other electronic communication).  The award recipients will be informed by May 30th and shall be presented at the June meeting. 

Recipients, sponsors and parents will be invited to our June meeting (or appropriate time/place) to receive acknowledgement and our congratulations. The presentation should take place before dinner, or any other business is conducted. This program officially began in 2021.