By: Deborah Johnson Wood
The Grand Rapids Community Foundation last week awarded area students 522 educational scholarships totaling nearly $516,000. The top three academic majors cited by successful candidates were healthcare, business, and law/social science.
In 1945, the foundation saw a need to draw nurses back to the area to fill shortages in the healthcare industry. Today, the foundation says history is repeating itself. The growth of the medical industry in dowtown Grand Rapids creates an urgent need for students looking to enter healthcare careers.
Jaynna De Leeuw, 20, received two grants totaling $800. De Leeuw, a second year nursing student at Grand Valley State University, plans to work in West Michigan after graduation in 2008. While $800 doesn’t offset the staggering costs of nursing school, De Leeuw says every penny counts.
“With nursing school, each semester you have a huge amount of books,” De Leeuw says, “so the scholarship will help with that. It will help pay for parking downtown [for classes].”
De Leeuw works a part-time job. But because classes run year-round, she doesn’t have the summer off to work more hours and save up. The little she makes pays for car insurance and gas to get her to work and school.
“I’m number five out of ten kids, and seven of us are still at home,” De Leeuw says. “My parents can’t afford to send us to college. So I rely fully on loans and scholarships.”
About 95 percent of the GRCF scholarships went to Michigan colleges and universities. Nearly half, some $250,000, went to West Michigan schools.
Source: Grand Rapids Community Foundation; Jaynna De Leeuw;
Deborah Johnson Wood is development news editor for Rapid Growth. She can be contacted at [email protected].
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