Scholarships put the fun in funding for education
We are in the time of year when students thinking about college are thinking about scholarships. To be more accurate, their parents are thinking about scholarships. One of the first things most parents ask is what I term the have you question. It usually comes out like this: have you looked at, have you thought of, have you considered or some variant of that phrase. How do I know this? Hey I had two sons, I know the drill. As a reminder kids hate this question, I know I did and still hate to get asked this question.
Ok well aside from my personal issues with ‘have you’ questions, this is scholarship season. Well deserving students with diabetes sometimes feel left out of the illness dollars. (Illness dollars- defined by a HS guidance counselor I worked with as being those scholarships that only children with specific illnesses are eligible for). The issue is so few dollars have been available for children with diabetes. In addition it was difficult to find those opportunities and often if you did, the funding deadline had already passed. However that issue has been corrected.
A few days ago the folks at the Diabetes Scholars Foundation released an announcement for their 2015 awards. This is the notice:
http://diabetesscholars.org/college-scholarship/
There is also a wonderful program for Canadian children with diabetes. The information for this program can be found at:
http://diabeteshopefoundation.com/content/scholarship-program
I hope you will look at the application information and more important share it with a type 1 HS student (incoming college freshman are eligible to apply for the diabetes scholars program), and also share it with your CDE, or doctor so they can pass the information along to the children .
So why is it important to share the information? Simple put they are our kids. Look I know many of us do not have children at home or if we do, they are likely not type 1’s (Thank goodness if they are not). But that does not excuse our obligation to the children who have type 1 diabetes. These are our children. They deserve the best breaks they can have and they deserve to have every advantage we (as a community) can provide.
Students eligible for these scholarships are about to launch into the world. They will be teachers, doctors, lawyers, plumbers, auto mechanics or some other profession. Like all parents we hope they succeed, happy and that they find the best situation in their adult lives. Our kids deserve the best shot we can give them. A few dollars can make a very big difference for any kid about to attend college.
I hope you will join me this year and all future years in telling our children of these opportunities. We will generate more dollars when we generate more applicants for these awards. Not every student will win, but no matter if ours wins or not, they are all winners if they got to college, and graduate while managing such a difficult disease.
But that is not all if you have type 1 diabetes and are an adult and would like to attend the Diabetes friends for life conference, you have until April 1 to apply for a scholarship to fund that event. The adult conference scholarship applications are available this site:
So many times we wonder how do people afford to attend such great conferences? All right maybe it is just me, but I wonder that. Anyway, this is an opportunity to apply for a scholarship to do just that. The link for the adult scholarship to friends for life can be found at:
http://diabetesscholars.org/conference-scholarship/cwd-conference/
I hope if you are interested you will consider applying.
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