Scholarship Kit for Schools > Scholarship Service Project

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Scholarship Service Project

Students can develop their own scholarship service projects that will help them, their classmates, and the community. Below is a synopsis of these projects as outlined in Scholarships 101: The Real-World Guide to Getting Cash for College, by Kimberly Stezala, Copyright 2008. All rights reserved.

1. Scholarship Special Event: You determine which organizations are the leading scholarship providers to students at your school and invite them to a “meet and greet,” scholarship summit, or special recognition party. Depending on the size of your school, the size of the scholarship provider and many other factors, this might be a nice way to thank the people who have invested a lot of money in students. Some scholarship sponsors prefer to work behind the scenes and may not attend. Their attendance is their choice, of course.

2. Scholarship Clinic: This is an interactive technical help session where students can get assistance from scholarship clinic volunteers. The point is to provide students with immediate help to move them to the next step of the scholarship search or application. Greater detail is provided in the book. Here is a synopsis:

Decide the purpose of the event and how you will organize it. Who will benefit and how? Seniors only or juniors, too? What will they get out of it?

Who will manage the event and what will their jobs be? Counselors? Student leaders? Parents? What will each person do? What are the necessary skills required?

How will it operate? Think about logistics and timing. Is is state testing week? Winter dance week? What’s the competition for your time and attention. How will traffic flow to deliver personal advice, computer-based searches, proofreading of essays?

How will you know you are a success - by the number of students who complete an application, complete a scholarship profile online, or start their essay? Be clear about this or people will just wonder around and waste time. Not you, of course. :)

3. Scholarship Information Source: This is a listing or database of local scholarships to which students at your school are likely to apply. Your school may already have a good list - if so, you are lucky! Thank the people who created it. If not, this could be an excellent service project that you and a team of students can complete in one school year. Your final product may be a printed list, booklet, interactive online database or a page on your school’s website. The main points to remember in this project are:

To determine a realistic scope of your work so you don’t get overwhelmed.

To gather resources, commitments and partners to help you.

To decide at what level you will use technology - a spreadsheet, database, website, etc.

To conduct your research in a methodical way using print, online, word-of-mouth, and promotional methods to find out about scholarships.

To create a plan for how you will distribute and share the information in your school, school district, county, etc.

To design a plan for updating the information resource or tool after you and your team leave (you won’t be in high school forever)!

I am working on a new kit for schools to use for scholarship service projects. Be sure you are subscribed to the Scholarship Street Newsletter to get the alert when the kit is ready. If there are specific tools or resources you’d like to see in the kit, share a comment in the blog.

Good luck with your project!