SCHOLARSHIP FOR CAMP SWEENEY STUDENTS The Peter Sategna Foundation is a Hayward based nonprofit which provides scholarship money with an emphasis on vocational scholarships. The theory is that a three to five thousand dollar scholarship to a vocational program such as nursing, welding, auto mechanic, EMT, etc. can create a life time career but would hardly pay for a year in college. The goal is to change lives. Sategna will make available to Blue Water to grant to Camp Sweeney students up to three scholarships annually, via Chabot College’s vocational program which covers twenty different fields. 1. The Sategna Foundation has tasked Blue Water Foundation with creating and monitoring a scholarship program for students and ex students from Camp Sweeney. Most of you are aware that for almost two years we have been working with Camp Sweeney on a sailing program for them, monthly or bi monthly sails, night sails, etc. We work with their probation officers who must accompany the students when out of the facility and who are remarkably dedicated and knowledgeable . The program has been a great success, all involved feeling it provides value to all who participate. 2. One continuing comment from our participants is that they wish to see if there is some way we could help get the students out of the living situation that put them in Camp Sweeney in the first place. This gives us the opportunity to try. 3. The concept is to work with Camp Sweeney administrative staff and personnel, various outside experts and Blue Water volunteers to set up a selection process not only to select candidates, but to follow up with the selected students to provide support and encouragement as they work through vocational studies. Ideally, we would have ex Camp Sweeney students who completed the program return to serve on the selection and mentoring program. This is to become a permanent program. Perhaps ten years ago Blue Water had a scholarship program through Light House Charter School for college but after giving the money, we failed to follow up and mentor in the least. The failure rate was high. We do not want to repeat that error. The students are entering a new world and will need support. There are many in Blue Water who want to sail and interact with the students more but simply cannot take the time from work or other responsibilities to come on the sails. This is an opportunity to help without that particular time commitment. It still will require time and effort and the students will depend on us to come through if we make that commitment. 4. The first step is to meet and discuss creation of the selection process, the support process and decide who should be on the committee, what criteria make sense, how it would work. We should invite Camp Sweeney personnel, who have, of course, the real expertise in this area, and those we know outside of Sweeney with expertise whether or not they wish to serve on any committee. We have to create an entire process for application; interview; selection; follow up; and self criticism to see where we can improve. This would be a separate program within Blue Water with its own committee and leader. It would report to the board just as the other programs do. For now, let’s call it the Scholarship Program. The members would undertake the responsibility not just of selection, but of follow through and mentoring if needed. We would need a large enough group so that such follow up can be achieved without overwhelming the members of the group. Sategna sees this as a permanent program…e.g. three scholarships a year for the future…if Blue Water can create a viable and valuable program. Consider how many lives could be changed if we do this correctly. 5. Our initial task is an organizational meeting that will last at least one hour and no more than three hours to occur in the next month. I would ask all interested to respond via e mail to Amber and myself and we shall create an e mail list and set up a meeting. We will arrange it so that people can call in by conference call but urge those that are truly interested to plan to attend. When responding, please indicate if nights or weekends are better for you for this first meeting. If night, the meeting would begin at six in the City near BART. If weekend, probably on a Sunday late morning at the Berkeley Yacht Club. If you cannot make the meeting, we will keep you on the list and advised. The PO on our last sail indicated he wanted to attend the meeting which is essential if we are to make this work and the more people we can get from Camp Sweeney, the better this will work. 6. For full disclosure, I am co chair of the Sategna Foundation and Gary Smith is the founder. I do not intend to chair this scholarship committee since I think there is an inherent conflict of interest between the funder and entity supervising it, but I will serve on the selection committee. I also think the selection committee should develop an advisory committee of those who truly are expert in this field…we are sailors, after all, though many have educational and law enforcement backgrounds…and the ultimate experts are the Camp Sweeney personnel who we must have actively involved in all aspects of this grant. They have other programs at the Camp and we can certainly learn much from how those work. 7. This is a unique opportunity for Blue Water to accomplish its goals in new ways and with immediate obvious results. A welder completing the program starts at 50-60,000 a year in salary. These programs work and Chabot is fully on board and will handle the money issues…our task is to select and mentor. This is not a casual commitment. You will have to put time and effort into creating a program of value and if the committee creates the method, staying in touch with the students. But it conforms to a belief I once heard from one of the people I respect: “You can’t do everything…but you can change the world.” We can change some lives here. E mail us back if you are truly interested in becoming involved. lstimmel@stimmel-law
Posted on: Thu, 02 Oct 2014 22:32:06 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015