The Ronald McDonald House Northern Nevada serves as a safe haven for families whose children are going through medical treatments for a variety of illnesses at nearby hospitals. This year, 38 students have been selected as recipients of scholarships from the Ronald McDonald House U.S. Scholarship Program. For those students, 64% of them will be the first in their families to attend college. For many of them, they’ve dealt with serious illnesses and other hardships in order to achieve their goals.
“Our selection process allows us to award to students who may not have had a chance otherwise to get a higher education without financial assistance,” said Marty Ozer, executive director for the Reno Ronald McDonald House®. “Our GPA requirements are less rigid than other scholarships, meaning we have a chance to help an underserved population in northern Nevada. This year we had 160 candidates, the most we’ve had since our program began.”
The event will be held Friday, May 8 at the Atlantis Resort Casino and Spa. Check-in time is 6:30 p.m. and the program starts at 7 p.m.
RMHC® U.S. Scholarship Program recipients need to meet financial, community involvement, and academic performance requirements in order to be eligible. They must have a minimum GPA of 2.7 and are awarded scholarships in $1,000 increments for up to three years. In its fifteenth year, the RMHC® U.S. Scholarship Program will have given assistance to 689 northern Nevada students, totaling more than $1.1 million in dollars awarded.
Recipients are selected from a pool of northern Nevada applicants who meet the criteria and plan to enroll full-time in a course of higher education, whether it be formal four-year university, two-year degree program, or a vocational or trade program.