SuperPages has awarded Squamish and Pemberton students $4,000 in scholarships and has provided the Squamish Off-Road Cycling Association with $3,500 to map and sign mountain bike trails as part of its Make it Real Scholarship program.
Students from schools in Squamish, Whistler and Pemberton were invited to submit essays based on the prompt: "If I had $3,500 to help my community, I would…"
In addition to awarding scholarships to the top three essayists, SuperPages agreed to fund the community project proposed in the winning essay, as well as to give each participating school a donation for a project of the school’s choice.
Scholarship winners were chosen by a panel of leaders in the community, and awards were presented in a ceremony at Squamish Municipal Hall on July 20.
Jackie Thompson of Squamish’s Howe Sound Secondary School took home the grand prize – a $2,500 scholarship – for her proposal to use the $3,500 to build and install signs and maps on mountain biking trails in the Squamish area.
Thompson decided on her proposal after getting lost on Squamish’s network of mountain bike trails one-too-many times.
She noted that signs and maps would be beneficial to more than just mountain bikers: "The Squamish Emergency Program (Search and Rescue), hikers and the families and friends of mountain bikers would also be impacted," she wrote in her essay.
Thompson also pointed out that "the addition of another asset to my community would be beneficial in the future because Squamish is ‘the heart’ of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games."
Second prize went to Jason McEwan of Pemberton Secondary School, who suggested that the money go toward purchasing a new piece of communications equipment for the Pemberton Search and Rescue team. McEwan received a $1,000 scholarship.
Jessica Blanchet, also from PSS, received a $500 scholarship for her third-prize essay suggesting that the money purchase new playground equipment for Pemberton’s Pioneer Park.
The Squamish-Whistler-Pemberton corridor was one of five community areas in Manitoba, Alberta and B.C. to participate in the first year of the SuperPages Make it Real Scholarship Program. Next year SuperPages will expand the program to include another 11 communities across B.C. and Alberta.
SuperPages is the exclusive publisher of Telus directories.
