Students write aspiration letters for scholarships.

Madawaska, Maine (WAGM) - A nonprofit aims to help more students in rural areas of the state like the St. John valley attend college by awarding scholarships. Tonight we have another story brought to us by the students at WOWL in Madawaska. Reporter Mallory Corriveau spoke with the program director to learn more.

(Mallory) “On Wednesday, March first, students at Madawaska elementary school submitted

their aspiration letters to the Maine college circle, hoping to receive their one hundred dollar

scholarship.”

(Mallory) “We caught up with Mr Bob Stuart to find out more”

(Bob) “Maine college circle is a nonprofit organization that was established in 1992 and all we

have been trying to do is to prompt the idea of aspirations since 2012. We have been awarding

future St John Valley scholarships to third thru sixth graders.”

(Mallory) “We then asked for an approximation of how many students actually receive this

award.”

(Bob) “Well on the St John Valley, there are six hundred thirty-four students who have bearded

scholarships since 2012, and I talked to all of the third thru sixth graders, a couple of months

ago, and we just received, yesterday we received three hundred nineteen scholarship

applications.”

(Mallory) “We also talked with Sierra, a Madawaska Elementary Student to see how she feels

about this opportunity.”

(Sierra) “It’s pretty cool, I think that it’s pretty cool because it gives kids a chance to get a

scholarship and want to go to college and want to know more.”

(Mallory) “We also talked with Peyton Cyr, a past recipient, to see how the program influenced

her college aspiration.”

(Peyton) “I realized that it was a good way to get a start on what I wanted to do when I was

older, clearly I was younger so I didn’t know that there were that many career and occupation

opportunities. So I think it was just getting to know the basics of what I wanted to be, get ahead

of what classes I want to take in the future, and get a start on what I wanted to do for my life.”

(Mallory) “We then asked Peyton if she had any advice as an outgoing senior to give to the

current students.”

(Peyton) “Yeah, I would tell sierra to not be afraid to try new things, not to be afraid to explore

new classes, and also take account into your future.”

(Mallory) “This has been Mallory Corriveau from WOWL, signing off”

Copyright 2023 WAGM. All rights reserved.