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Our program: The Rotary Club of Excelsior held its Annual STRIVE Luncheon and Scholarships Awards Program on Tuesday, May 15th at the South Shore Community Center in Shorewood. STRIVE is a motivational program for Minnetonka High School Seniors and stands for “Students Taking Renewed Interest in the Value of Education” with a goal to help and mentor students in improving their academic performance, attendance, attitudes, goal setting, self-esteem and work and study habits. The Rotarian mentors meet bi-weekly with the seniors for the entire school year to participate in presentations and small group discussions. This year was an outstanding success with most of the 24 students attending most of the 13 motivational sessions with 12 students making the Honor Roll and two students making the “A” Honor Roll. Invited to the luncheon was the parents of the STRIVE students and to be present at the awarding of $8,000 in scholarships. A unique aspect of the scholarship awards is that they are based on the academic improvement from where they started the year and not on GPA.
STRIVE Scholarships were presented by Dick Glover the STRIVE Coordinator from the Excelsior Rotary to Alyssa Barrows ($2500), Alex Roux ($1500), and $1000 each to Melissa Burns, Kaisa Hommer and Nathan Chapman. Scholarship winners who are attending Normandale, Hennepin Technical or Dunwoody all have the opportunity to have their scholarship amount matched by those post- secondary institutions.