Maple Ridge event honours RMEF scholarship recipients

The Ridge Meadows Education Foundation handed out 25 scholarships to worthy recipients at an event at Thomas Haney Secondary School.

The scholarships ranged from $235 up to $6,000 and were awarded to students pursuing a variety of career goals including those aiming towards a teaching degrees, carpentry, home economics, culinary arts, accounting, and criminal justice, amongst others. They were also awarded to graduating students from schools across the district.

“One of the purposes of last Mondays event, was to bring together scholarship donors and recipients,” explained the foundation’s board chair Dave Rempel.

Donors like Frank Hauzer, who was on hand to award the Keane Hauzer Scholarship, in honour of his own son who passed away in 2008, to recipient Shamus Horobec who is currently in the Joinery Foundation program at the British Columbia Institute of Technology.

Hauzer explained how his son, Keane, was interested in carpentry and they created the scholarship soon after he died.

The scholarship is worth $500 and the recipient, Hauzer explained, is chosen by School District 42.

Hauzer explained how he feels a sense of healing handing out the scholarship. He said it is a very rewarding feeling.

“I’m proud to do it for the balance of my life,” said the 72-year-old.

Horobec said receiving a scholarship like the Keane Hauzer Scholarship, helps students like him a lot.

“It helps me to pursue my education further,” he said. “Without the burden of trying to find money somewhere and apply for student loans.”

Horobec noted how amazing it was to also meet the person behind the scholarship – something that not all scholarship recipients get to do.

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The Ridge Meadows Education Foundation was established by SD42 in June, 2004, when Rempel was a school board trustee, after they were told that a school board could not keep funds in trust because it is not within their mandate.

So they established the foundation to keep the funds that the district had been collecting for scholarships in trust.

At the recognition ceremony that was held on Monday, Oct. 17, some of the scholarship recipients reflected on what the money will mean for them. There was a musical performance by students from Fairview Elementary, and information about the foundation’s grants, awarded to schools in the district in March, was relayed to the crowd, including the application process, the next application intake, and reflections from past grant recipients.

There was also a recognition of special donors including the Gary and Nanette Lycan Scholarship and the Melva Leppa Scholarship.

For more informtation about the Ridge Meadows Education Foundation and a full list of scholarships go to rmef.ca.