Rotary Club of Avalon Park Announces Annual Scholarships and UCF Endowment

The Rotary Club of Avalon Park scholarship committee gathered several weeks ago putting the finishing touches on a plan that has been years in the making. The Sacha Patin Memorial Scholarship Fund is named after the late Sacha Patin, fellow Rotarian and the founder of the Holiday Wine Walk. Since his passing, the Rotary Club has earmarked proceeds from the Wine Walk to be donated to his memorial scholarship fund. As the Holiday Wine Walk’s popularity grew, so too did the scholarship fund. Rotary has also added the Sip, Sample & Stroll (known as the Spring Wine Walk) so the club came up with a plan to allocate funds over the next few years that will help various groups of students. Here is a summary of the club’s three big initiatives:

UCF - Timber Creek Scholarship.

An endowment will be established at UCF that will award an annual scholarship to UCF with a preference given to Timber Creek Students that are involved in community service. As the sponsor of the Interact Club at TCHS and co-sponsor of the Rotaract Club at UCF, this seemed to be a logical way for us to support our local students. Did you know there are more Timber Creek High School graduates that attend UCF than any other high school in the United States? While it will take us three years to fully fund the endowment, this scholarship will be awarded through the UCF Foundation starting this Fall.

Valencia College Scholarship.

A “first generation” scholarship to Valencia that qualifies for state matching funds is being established. This is likely to be a needs-based scholarship and Rotary has started the process with Valencia to kick-off this award in the Fall of 2021. The club has previously awarded several scholarships at Valencia and will continue to make contributions to help students achieve their goal of starting post-secondary education.

University of Texas at Austin Scholarship.

Sacha Patin moved to Orlando from Austin and was a die-hard UT Longhorn. Rotary has plans to award an annual scholarship to UT for an incoming freshman that is a graduate of a Florida High School. An additional “stretch goal” is to engage Sacha’s family and friends in Texas to see if the club can accumulate the funds required to name an endowed scholarship at UT. Rotary will begin awarding this scholarship in 2021.

“It is an honor for our club to award scholarships to students each year,” stated Jim Foulks, Co-Chair of the Scholarship Committee. DeDe Holloway, who is the other Co-Chair added: “It is exciting to see how Sacha’s legacy of service will live on through these deserving students.”

Details are being finalized with all three institutions and will be shared through Timber Creek High School’s College & Career Center. For more information please email: avalonparkrotary@gmail.com.

Rotary supports education! To learn more about Rotary please feel free to drop by our weekly meeting on Wednesdays at 7:30 AM at the Pavilion (Avalon Park POA building) - we look forward to meeting you!