To fulfill its commitment to rewarding high-achieving high school students, the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga honored BI-LO scholarship recipients and Comcast Digital Connectors graduates at an awards ceremony on Saturday.
During the ceremony, BI-LO awarded two $2,500 scholarships to recent high school graduates, and Comcast Chattanooga awarded its 13 Digital Connectors graduates with $16,000 in incentives, including $500, a laptop computer and a flip video camera for every participant.
“Higher education is the key to a successful future,” said Mary Edwards, education director of the Urban League of Greater Chattanooga. “We are excited to be able to offer these generous scholarship opportunities to our area’s best and brightest students.”
BI-LO’s scholarships were awarded to Ivan Lee and Keni Gray-Timmons, recent Chattanooga School for the Arts and Sciences graduates who demonstrated outstanding academic and personal achievement, community service and leadership.
In the search for the beneficiaries, Urban League sorted through more than 25 applications from 11 Hamilton County Schools.
Comcast’s Digital Connectors program culminated with a final digital project, which the graduates individually presented at the awards ceremony. The 13 students included Alexia Green, Brianna Wright, Cleesha Heard, Kenneth Spann, Larry King, Madison Mines, Morgan Mines, Nancy Wong, Niamke Shropshire-Boykin, Rocio Reyna-Reyes, Simone Edwards, Travis Lytle, and Zowie Boyd.
Digital Connectors is a national movement of young people dedicated to improving themselves and their communities through leadership development and digital literacy skills. During the program’s intensive 156 curriculum hours and 60 community service hours, the students earned CISCO certification, a valuable workplace asset for those entering the IT industry.