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GRANT OPPORTUNITIES
Laurel Upper School students have the opportunity to apply for three extraordinary grants each year thanks to endowment awards set up by our generous donors.
Emily Pomeranz '85 Prize for Public Service
Established in 2017, the Emily Pomeranz '85 Prize for Public Service is made possible through a generous endowment gift initiated by her brother, Will Pomeranz, and supports a Junior who has proposed a public service project for her spring or summer break.
The 2023 recipient, Ella Witalec '25, developed the idea to host a Hackathon to teach area middle school girls how to code. As part of her Capstone Project, Ella’s research indicated a lack of interest and opportunities for females in STEM-related fields, including coding. With funds she earned from the Pomeranz Prize, and as the grand prize winner of The Cleveland Leadership Center’s Teen Accelerate Competition, Ella was able to launch her coding workshop, CodeHERs CLE. The inaugural Hackathon with 31 middle school students—over half of whom do not attend Laurel—was held at Laurel on June 3, 2023. Ella’s goal is to provide support for others to sustain an interest in the field, showing them how computer science serves to solve real-world issues. Ella had a chance to share her CodeHERs CLE work with the Laurel Upper School and friends and family of Emily Pomeranz at the Pomeranz Chapel on September 14, 2023.
Katherine S. B. Mills Grant for the Study of Photography
This grant is given each year in loving memory of Katherine “Katie” Mills, a vibrant and talented member of Laurel’s Class of 1997. The grant assists aspiring photography students to attend a summer photography workshop, an experience that nurtured Katie’s own passion for photography.
Serene Hameed '25 was selected as this year’s Katherine S. B. Mills Grant recipient Serene used this opportunity to spend a week this past summer at Savannah College of Art and Design. She chose to study Digital Foundations of Photography and Film and TV; Script to Screen. Serene’s intensive study focused on the basic use of cameras, new photography techniques and collaboration. Serene will continue to hone her photography skills throughout this school year with the culmination being a Laurel art exhibition on March 7, 2024.
Joan D. and John T. Scott Fund
The Joan D. and John T. Scott Fund was established in memory of Joan D. Scott (faculty emerita) and John Thomson Scott, Jr., who were the parents of three Laurel girls: Julie Scott Lovell '74, Katherine Marjorie Scott '78 and Amy Scott Gilchrist '81. This fund supports Laurel School students in their study of history, government, or journalism with the hope that such study will engender in their minds a dedication to the ideals of representative democracy.
Kathryn Tracanna '24, this year’s recipient of the Joan D and John T Scott Fund, has used the grant to complete her Capstone Project in economics. Her work, influenced by Keynesian ideas, focuses on government spending on welfare programs and how such spending can be used to increase employment. Kathryn found that welfare programs provide workers more time to find jobs for which they will be more productive. This allows many people to find higher-paying jobs that they will be able to retain. The goal of her project is meant to facilitate discourse and show that welfare should be considered as a mechanism for increasing employment. Earlier this year Kathryn was the only high school student selected to present her research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland’s Economic Scholars Program.
