For the third-straight year this year, Sanmerna Paper Products Limited and the Sanmerna Foundation Ltd have awarded scholarships to students of Balmagie Primary School based on their Grade Six Achievement Test scores.

The students — Giovanna Hermit, Kimberly Watson, Michida McIntyre, and Taysean Brown — were the top scorers at their school and received scholarships totalling $1 million.

Hermit, who will attend Ardenne High School, scored an average of 92 per cent; Watson, with an average of 90.8 per cent, will also attend Ardenne; McIntyre, with an average of 90 per cent, will attend St Andrew High School for Girls; and Brown’s average of 89.8 per cent qualified him for St George’s College.

The scholarship project was started by brothers Robert and Mark White with $1.5 million in 2015, but rose to $1.8 million last year as the need increased.

Sanmerna Foundation Limited is a non-profit organisation that provides gainful opportunities to foster a sense of responsibility, commitment and to inspire a positive hope to young, disadvantaged youths and the elderly in inner-city communities.

It supports grassroots initiatives to uplift disadvantaged citizens by identifying projects that will encourage well-being amongst its beneficiaries and as such aims at providing not only empty hope but well-needed resources such as education grants, sports integration, social Initiatives and health facilities.

Sanmerna operates from Ashenheim Rd, Kingston 11, not far from Capture, Waterhouse, where Balmagie is located.

In making the recipients understand the meaning behind the scholarship grants, Robert White explained the gesture of the presentation.

“Service,” he pointed out, “is the rent that we pay for life on Earth. I have no regrets in making such a statement.”

“I am a past student of Balmagie Primary School and with God’s guidance, along with a dogged determination (characterised) by constant toil, I stayed focused and now I’m the chairman of the noble institution Balmagie Primary School, an indomitable, resilient outlet for moulding minds and shaping the future,” White said.

His brother, Mark, challenged the Sanmerna awards recipients to engage in service themselves:

“No matter how much money you have in your pockets it cannot buy happiness,” he told them last week.

“Living a life of service, looking back on the faces and lives that we have impacted and transformed with numerous programmes that we have launched — one such programme is the Sanmerna Scholarship Awards that has brought us here today — could give us a sense of having done something worthwhile to improve the human condition,” he said.

“Clap yourselves; you have done well. You must, however, continue to remain focused on your dreams and aspirations, study hard, never give up even when the going gets tough,” he advised the students.