Osborne High School student Jared Mendoza is a first-generation college student attending Chattahoochee Tech this fall. Her mother and 5th-grade sister were at Osborne when Jared learned she was the recipient of a $1,000 Cobb Schools Foundation scholarship, as well as a $3,272 scholarship recognizing her overall success and perseverance.
During Jared’s scholarship interview, she attributed her success to her mother and her Spanish teacher at Osborne, Kerae Joonsar. She shared that her teacher inspired her to continue learning and striving for the next level of success because she was capable of continuing her success.
“My Spanish teacher always told me I could do more.”
The Cobb Schools Foundation spent the last week of the school year recognizing and awarding scholarships to exceptional students, like Jared.
An independent scholarship committee that works out of the Cobb Schools Foundation Board spends hundreds of hours reviewing, scoring, interviewing, and selecting up to two scholarship recipients from each of Cobb’s seventeen high schools. They also review and score finalists from several other donor-funded scholarships as well.
“We are so honored to be able to review applicants from across the district. Many of my colleagues on the committee agree that it would be very challenging to compete with the seniors that are graduating from our schools,” said Joy Doss, chairperson for the scholarship committee.
In addition to the Cobb Schools Foundation scholarship, Jared also earned the special Perseverance Scholarship Award, funded by Dr. Jaha Howard, who set the objective to find a student who displayed grit and the will to persevere despite life’s curveballs.
“We all have moments in life that can determine our next steps for the better or worse. This scholarship was designed to award an outstanding student who really has the grit to keep going,” Dr. Howard shared.
Another scholarship awarded by Dr. Howard went to Chibuzo Ibuoffor of South Cobb High School. He is the first recipient of the Spanish-speaking Future Teacher Scholarship worth $4,909 and is attending Georgia Tech this summer.
Ibuoffor’s mom attended the small ceremony at South Cobb High School to celebrate her son’s success at school and looks forward to the continued success he has worked so hard for.
“We are always so grateful to our community of supporters who believe in our students. We want our students to know that people in our community care about them and their achievements and are willing to support them in big ways. They work so hard and have amazing teachers to prop them up and prepare them for the future. It’s an honor to be able to celebrate alongside their families, even in small ways,” praised Felicia Wagner, Executive Director of the Cobb Schools Foundation.
To learn more about teaming up with the Cobb Schools Foundation to help take student success to new heights, visit www.cobbschoolsfoundation.org or email cobbschoolsfoundation@cobbk12.org.
