Partnership builds scholarship fund for South Putnam students

PALATKA — A dozen students from the south end of the Putnam County School District will receive college scholarships as a result of a partnership between Communities in Schools, the Cruise Industry Charitable Foundation and the Florida Pre-Paid Scholarship Foundation, U.S. Rep. John L. Mica, R-Winter Park, said Friday.

Mica, who represents part of Putnam including the southern section, was the only state government official among a roomful of county commissioners, school board members and administrators present at a luncheon designed to announce the participating organizations' emerging scholarship program.

The $8,000 scholarships are the first coming from the partnership to be awarded to Putnam students, said Sandra Hartley, executive director of Communities in Schools of Putnam County.

About half of the money comes from the charitable foundation and the rest comes from the prepaid scholarship foundation, which is a matching grant program that brings the scholarship fund total to $106,000, charitable foundation director Cindy Colenda said Friday.

Six of the receiving students are sixth-graders at Miller Intermediate School and six will be eighth-graders from Crescent City Junior-Senior High School, she said.

The eighth-grade recipients haven't been determined yet, but the sixth-graders are Tina Williams, Joshua Taylor, Maria delRosario Tipton, Rikki Rogers, Halley Elizabeth Hooten and Rami Brown.

Their scholarship money goes into a fund and collects interest for six years until the students are ready to use it for college, Hartley said. When they graduate from high school, they must register at a two-year community college. Then they'll transfer to a state university or vocational college for another two-year tenure.

"We call it a two-and-two program," Hartley said.

The students can't use the scholarship money for out-of-state schools and they must graduate from within the state's public school system.

To qualify for the scholarship, students must have scored a 3 or higher on the previous year's Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test, must maintain a 2.5 grade-point average, collect no more than five unexcused absences from school, abstain from drugs, crime and bad behavior and participate in at least three community service projects per year, Hartley said.

Scholarship students also have a mentor assigned to them.

The money is guaranteed, she said.

"The fund is doing what a parent can't do," Hartley said. "It freezes the scholarship in today's dollars so that in six years, no matter what, they'll have four years of college paid for."

The Cruise Industry Charitable Foundation focuses its efforts on programs that are designed to improve the quality of life in the communities served by the cruise industry, according to the foundation's Web site. It was founded in 1998 by the members of the International Council of Cruise Lines, which aims to foster a safe, secure and healthy cruise ship environment for passengers.