Writing & Winning: AFSCME Family Scholarships 2006
"AFSCME builds better lives for its workers and their families." So wrote Dana Rae Vlock in her application for a 2006 AFSCME Family Scholarship. The union's judges liked not only that succinct sentiment but also the young mind that expressed it. So Dana, along with 12 other children of active or retired AFSCME members, will receive a $2,000 scholarship for full-time course work toward a college degree. If the winners do well in school, the awards will be renewed for up to three more years.
The statements in other winners' essays ranged from the personal to the broadly political. Monique Doughty wrote about how "My mother's benefits through AFSCME have put braces on my teeth," while Wandaya Terry declared, "We cannot allow our country to become full of Enrons or Worldcoms, where employees lose out because their employers were driven by greed." All clearly and hearteningly conveyed a sense of the union as an inspiration for the writers' plans and dreams.
THE CLASS OF 2006
The AFSCME Family Scholarship program was created in 1986 when AFSCME celebrated its 50th anniversary. The deadline for the 2007 awards is Dec. 31, 2006, and applications can be downloaded from www.afscme.org starting Aug. 1, or you can call the Department Education and Leadership Training at (202) 429-1250.
