WESTERN BUREAU — The Sandals and Beaches chain of hotels on Monday awarded scholarships, valued at some $600,000, to 21 needy students as part of their seven year-old community scholarship award programme.

As the list of awardees were read at the handing over ceremony, the stories were of youngsters from struggling families, many of whom had recently lost a parent. The recipients are students who would not have been able to attend noted high schools like Westwood High, St Hilda’s High and Knox College without the scholarships that will cover the cost of books and tuition, plus some personal expenses.

Gordon “Butch” Stewart, head of the Sandals chain, used the presentation ceremony to urge awardees to take advantage of the opportunity presented to them as it was the hard work and sacrifice of others that had served to benefit them.

“Don’t take for granted the fact that somehow you have shown yourself worthy of a scholarship, paid for by Sandals. A lot of people believe that because it’s a Corporation they have unending money to pay for different things… and that’s not the case,” he said.

Added Stewart: “I would encourage everybody to do as best as they can do and graduate. Take advantage of it because the money doesn’t come from no-where. People have to work for the money to come to pay for those things and there is not a Sandals person that has not contributed in some way to these 21 scholarships… Money doesn’t come out of thin air.”

Leo Lambert, Sandals’ director of corporate communications, said the seven year-old project was special to company employees because it, more than any other of their over 100 projects in the island, augured well for the future of the youth.

“Sandals supports more than 100 community projects in Jamaica alone… But this particular project, the Sandals Community Scholarship Awards, bears special significance to us,” he said. “Whereas many of the other projects are charity and are about the present, this particular project is about the future. It is about giving some youngsters who are bright, who are talented, the opportunity to make a difference to tomorrow.”

The programme, Lambert said, started amidst requests from various principals who came to them with stories of children unable to attend school because of financial constraints.

“So we did a little informal survey and we discovered that what we were being told aåt the school level was right,” he said. “(And) we decided we would put a programme in place to deal with this sore issue in the host communities in which we operate, for young children who are bright and promising but who were not in school.”

Since then, some 83 students have benefitted from the programme. And all the students needed to do was fulfil a list of criteria including:

* the maintenance of a B+ average,

* a show of continuous improvement in their academic performance, and

* the maintenance of behaviour in school that is beyond reproach.

“We said to them if you are prepared to do these three little things we will rescue you from being a victim of your circumstances,” Lambert said, adding that the majority of the students were doing well.

Many, he said, were scoring grades of between 70 and 80 per cent, on average.

“I like to call them little Sandalites. These little Sandalites are going to make us proud. The overall average for our students has been improving and not just in the female category but in the male category,” he said.