By Melanie Petrucci, Senior Community Reporter
Shrewsbury – The 2017-2018 academic school season has been a banner year for the Shrewsbury Education Foundation (SEF) who formally awarded $19,075.36 to the Shrewsbury Public Schools in the form of teacher grants at their annual Awards, Recognitions and Fundraising Dinner Jan. 20 at Cyprian Keyes Golf Club in Boylston. Funds have already been dispersed and put to work through an unprecedented 25 grants that were awarded.
In addition to recognizing grant recipients, the SEF also awarded the John P. Collins Awards for Excellence honoring the exemplary efforts of the eight who were presented with the award in categories including leadership, administrative, professional and para-professional. Of note was the Leadership Award presented to Assistant Superintendent for Finance and Operations Patrick Collins, son of Dr. John P. Collins for whom the awards are named.
The Community Service Award honoree, Shrewsbury High School’s Community Service Program, was represented by two students, Victoria Flint and Sophia Flionis, who presented a video highlighting the work of the high school’s program. The program was selected because through the efforts of countless high school students since 2011, the students at Shrewsbury High School have performed a total of 96,293 service hours.
“If you ever have a doubt about what’s going on in our society today, come and spend a couple of hours at Shrewsbury High School. You will feel such positive energy toward what is going to happen to this next generation that is going to be taking over,” said State Rep. Hannah Kane (R-Shrewsbury), as she thanked and presented a citation from the House of Representatives to the students.
Her remarks were followed by State Senator Michael Moore (D-Millbury), who also presented them with a citation from the State Senate.
“We talk about our teachers being role models and this is a good example,” he said. “The skills that they are teaching our students goes beyond the math, the science and history. It’s what is important in our community and being a part of it.”
The SEF thanked the following for their support and generosity: Blue & Gold Sponsors – Central One Federal Credit Union and Avidia Charitable Foundation; Silver Sponsors -The Hannah Kane Charity Classic and Aurora Exterior Painting and UniBank; and Patrons – Thrive Real Estate, Flaherty Physical Therapy, Webster Five and the Shrewsbury Federal Credit Union. Additional community supporters include Polito Development Corporation, Danielson Flowers and Papa’s Hardware.
For more information about the SEF, please visit SEFgrants.org.