El Centro Chamber Foundation to award scholarships to local residents

The El Centro Chamber Foundation is offering scholarships to high school students and people continuing education after high school.

To qualify for the scholarship you have to be an Imperial County resident and in school. We were told that as much as three thousand dollars will be given away.

“So what we’ll be doing is giving away, we have three thousand dollars to give away scholarships to both high school seniors as well as current college students. And we’re not sure exactly how we are going to break it up it just depends on how many applicants we get,” said Darletta Willis, CEO/President of the El Centro Chamber Foundation.

Applicants will be asked to submit an application along with a required essay, two letters of recommendation and transcripts from their current school.

“We have a committee that reviews the applications, all of the information, the applicant’s information will be redacted so that it will be a fair process and they will just evaluate their GPA, what they’ve contributed to the community, their extra-curricular activities and their essays. And it’s a point based system,” explained Willis.

Applicants with the most points will be rewarded with a scholarship.

“I think it’s very important for us to encourage and support the student here that are going to college because they are going to be our future employees and employers, so i think it’s critical for The El Centro Chamber and its foundation to support that,” added Willis.

The application process just started last week and the deadline to apply is April 21st. For more information on the scholarship and how to apply you can visit http://www.elcentrochamber.org/pages/ElCentroChamberFoundation