Letter from CEC Scholarship recipient Isabela Acenas
On May 20 the Citizens Environmental Council of Burlingame (CEC) awarded scholarships to Burlingame High School (BHS) students for the fourth consecutive year.
CEC gave a $2,000 scholarship to Orla Lynagh-Shannon, who was an active, athletic, straight-A student at Saint Ignatius College Prep High School until she suffered a traumatic brain injury during a traffic accident in the spring of her junior year. The injury forced her to drop out of school for a year of intensive cognitive and physical therapy.
Once she had recovered, she came to BHS last fall to complete her high school education, where she is again displaying academic excellence. Orla did her senior project on climate change.
After meeting a mentor who served as a sustainability officer in the Obama administration and at Google, Orla decided to follow a similar career path. She will attend UCLA next fall, where she plans a double major in international relations and environmental science.
CEC awarded a $1,000 scholarship to Carmen Lavilla, who has had a lifelong interest in the oceans. As a child in the Philippines, she routinely accompanied her grandmother to the fish market, where she would look at all the fresh catch available, then return home and look them up in the Encyclopedia of Marine Life. Her coursework in environmental science and biology alerted her to the dangers now facing the oceans. She will attend CSU Monterey Bay, where she plans to major in marine biology.
This year’s awards were underwritten by a grant from the Morris Smith Foundation, administered by Sterling Franklin, trustee.
Related posts
