Just a friendly reminder that final application submissions for this year’s Build A Better Future Scholarship are due by Monday, April 7, 2025 at 11:59 MST. Prior to submitting your application, please ensure you have met all requirements, have all pictures and videos correctly uploaded to the form, and that all contact and school information is accurate.
You can find the application as well as our FAQ page here. Should you have any further questions, please reach out to us via email at scholarship@honorsgraduation.com.
We can’t wait to see the amazing projects you have been working on!
Just a friendly reminder that the deadline for the OPTIONAL Strategy Plan is due this coming Monday, March 3.
This form is NOT required, and is optional. If you are planning to apply for our scholarship, and would like feedback on your project prior to submitting your final application, you are welcome to fill out a Strategy Plan, and we will do our best to give feedback and answer any questions you may have.
We’re reached the end of our 2024 scholarship winner spotlights. You can find out more about our other winners by clicking on their names: Jack, Thrisha, Sahana, and Josephine. Last, but certainly not least, we have Elia Woods, who created The Recycling Project, which is aimed to provide better water accessibility to homeless and other underserved populations.
Elia described what made this project come about, “One day, when my mom and I were volunteering at Paz de Cristo, a local homeless charity, we noticed a problem. While dinner was being served, we noticed that many of those in need were using old Circle K cups or crinkled plastic water bottles for their drinking water. They were then coming back to the water dispenser several times to refill small styro-foam coffee cups and old disposable bottles. They clearly did not have a durable solution to store/drink water outside of the shelter.”
When she realized it was a problem at one homeless shelter, Elia realized it was likely a problem at other shelters as well, and that she could do something to help. Her solution for this was to place donation bins in various businesses in the community. There, people could donate new or used reusable water bottles. Elia would then collect the water bottles, wash them, then donate them to those in need.
These donations would help to alleviate the problem of poor quality water containers while also reducing the use of single use plastic water bottles. In 2022, Elia was able to collect and donate 678 reusable water bottles, and in 2023, she was able to collect over 1,500! What an amazing impact this project has had.
We’re continuing our spotlights of our 2024 scholarship winners. You can read our other spotlight posts here, here, and here.
Today’s spotlight is on Josephine Gardiner, whose aim is to provide free swim lessons to underprivileged and underserved children. Josephine grew up swimming and on swim teams, and feels very comfortable in and around the water. As she watched her classmates and others swim, she realized that not everyone was as confident in water as she was.
Thus, her project, “Pool Panthers” was born. Josephine’s overall goal was to “improve water safety and wellbeing for youth and teens in under-resourced communities.” To achieve this goal, she plans to teaching basic floating and swimming skills, teaching children how to use swim equipment, helping children understand water safety skills, educating parents and guardians how to be effective water watchers, and promoting a fun water environment while also encouraging children to love water while being safe in it.
Josephine planned to hold lessons at low-income housing complexes, alleviating the problem of how children would travel to their swim lessons. She used Red Cross trained volunteer instructors and life guards, and would hold multiple lessons at the same location so as to reach as many kids as possible. She also made sure to cater to all skills and comfort levels.
By providing these free lessons, Josephine has been able to promote a safe relationship with water while still allowing for children to have fun and get use out of their community pools.
Today we continue our spotlights on our 2024 scholarship recipients. You can read about our other winners here and here.
Our spotlight today is on Sahana Gupta. Sahana came to realize that while many children in foster care had their basic needs taken care of, extra “wants” were often overlooked. She set out to create a positive birthday memory for children in the Charlottesville Attention Foster Family by baking, decorating, and delivering personalized birthday cakes.
Her goals include to expand her project beyond the foster care system to serving other children in need, as well as creating partnerships with bakeries and children’s organizations to maximize the reach of her project.
Sahana had all the resources at her own home, and was able to get cakes made and delivered easily, which allowed for her to get her idea up and going quickly and effectively. You can check out her website Hani’s Heroes for more information.
As someone who has had a cousin and a niece adopted into my family out of foster care, I absolutely love this project and the thought and consideration Sahana put into the children who are in foster care. It’s an important work, for sure!
Every year, we award five $10,000 scholarships to graduation seniors who have created and put into action a program of some kind to give back to and help their community. Our 2024 winners worked hard to do just that. You can check out our top winner here. We’d also like to take the opportunity to spotlight the other four winners!
Today’s spotlight is on Thrisha Kalpatthi, who launched Pittsburgh Metro Math.
From her early grade school years, Thrisha has been involved in competitive math. As she got older, she noticed a lack of diversity in those competitions. She began to see that most competitions were geared toward students who had more experience and who had sharpened their math skills with the use of coaches and other prepatory materials. Students who did not have access to those extra resources often left competitions without awards and feeling discouraged. This outcome would sometimes lead to those students losing confidence and interest in math. Thrisha realized that it would be incredibly beneficial to create “an inclusive environment that would foster talent among all aspiring mathematicians.”
Using her own experience and knowledge about mathematic competitions and creative problem solving, Thrisha set out to find a way to help these aspiring mathematicians. Together with her sister, she designed, organized, and launched the Pittsburgh Metro Math Competition. In order to make this happen, she secured scholarships, created competition questions, and gathered volunteers. She held two competitions with great success, and even raised $1500 for the Brashear Association, a non-profit organization in her community. She is also working on launching weekly math classes, hoping to equip students with the knowledge needed to compete and excel in higher level competitions.
Good work, Thrisha! I love this project and the positive impact it has had on students and the interest in mathematics that it has generated for students in her area.
Our top Build a Better Future Scholarship winner for 2024 was Jack Voelker. Being the top winner means that he also received a $5,000 grant to further the work of his project in addition to a $10,000 college scholarship.
In Jack’s version of building a better future, he started with a simple observation while visiting Croatia. He writes,
“I am a dual Croatian-American citizen, and my family and I regularly go there to visit relatives. Being an avid lacrosse player, I went to a local scrimmage. This would have been the end of my experience but for one observation that led to one question that led to a mission: I noticed that as each player ran off the field, he would hand the substitute his sweaty helmet to wear. This repeated several times. I asked a player on the sideline if his teammates had forgotten their helmets. He said no—they didn’t have enough for everyone because they were expensive. My mind flashed to the new helmets we received every year for our club team and piles of perfectly good “last year’s” helmets collecting dust in garages all over Long Island. The next year, I returned with a dozen donated helmets and was met with deep appreciation. In subsequent summers, I would bring as much donated equipment as I could. Word spread through the small international lacrosse community about the American kid helping in Croatia, and other developing programs reached out. My response was to found All Latitudes Lacrosse (ALL), a nonprofit dedicated to growing the sport globally.”
His love for the game and for the people ran deep, so he knew he needed to make a difference. Once he made the initial jump to donating supplies he was able to connect with more and more people and organizations to help him further his project.
“I have created All Latitudes Lacrosse, to connect donated lacrosse equipment from my community on Long Island with developing programs around the world. Here in the United States, most equipment gets discarded after the purchaser no longer needs it. Thus, the solution to inaccessibility to equipment around the world was connecting the equipment that is outgrown or no longer used here, with where it is needed. However, doing so was difficult, as simply shipping the equipment is expensive. The biggest challenge was finding low-cost or even free ways to get 2 teams’ worth of gear to each of the programs that I helped. Therefore, I had to “get creative.” In one case, I partnered with a safari company headquartered in New York City to get the equipment to Nairobi.”
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On top of donating equipment and supplies to these communities across the globe, Jack has also been able to create connections with the players and get to know them even better. He told us about his experience,
“The project was effective in its ability to reach such a wide variety of programs around the world. For example, at the 2018 World Lacrosse Championship in Netanya, Israel, I connected donated lacrosse equipment from my community with a local youth program. While there, I ran a clinic, in which I taught the local children how to play lacrosse. Despite a language barrier, I experienced a deep connection with these children through the sport. In 2022, I connected donated equipment with a youth program in Ghana. During the Wildfire Lacrosse Festival (a celebration of the inauguration of this lacrosse program), I spoke with the children via video call. I spoke about my experiences, balancing school with sports, and how sports can make you a better student. Again, I was able to see firsthand the power of sports in bringing people together and building relationships.”
As for the grant money, Jack has big dreams as well. He was chatting with a friend about the challenges that come with playing lacrosse and it gave him a great idea on how he can expand to help even more students to play. He writes,
“We spoke about our individual experiences in the international lacrosse community, and what the biggest challenges are for the growth of the sport. He told me about one of the biggest struggles that his community faces. Throughout the course of any given month, girls are unable to attend school or participate in sports for about a week due to their menstrual cycle. This means that for 25% of the time, girls have to stay home. As a result, it is difficult to increase participation for girls in sports – especially a sport like lacrosse which already faces its own challenges.”
“Therefore, I would like to use the grant to purchase and send period underwear. I would like to approach the company Thinx and work out an agreement. For example, I would ask them if it would be possible that for every one item that I purchase, they would be willing to donate one or two. I have done something similar for the boy’s lacrosse program. I started a “Cups for Kenya” equipment drive. I reached out to Shock Doctor and asked them for a donation. I purchased 50 protective cups and they donated another 100 cups. It is an overlooked but critical piece of equipment for players. Access to this product for women in communities like Reagan’s would drastically improve the quality of life for these girls by allowing them to receive a more complete education, as well as participate in sports.”
We are so excited to see where All Latitutes Lacrosse goes in the future and we are so proud to have Jack as our 2024 top scholarship recipient!
