Housing Opportunities Made Equal will once
again be awarding the Joanne Champion Granger Scholarship Award at the
42nd Annual Meeting and Dinner in April 2005. The award is
designed to encourage young people’s participation in civil rights
activities as well as recognizing outstanding academic achievement.
“I hope that young people will develop
a real excitement for life and the marvels of the world around and
within them. This type of excitement can only come with the ability to
see, to judge, and to respond to the world…”
These simple words exemplify the personal
philosophy of the late Joanne Champion Granger, a high school science
teacher and community activist in whose honor this scholarship was
established. Her personal experience with housing discrimination did
not defeat her, but led her to use her courage and determination to work
for equal rights in housing for herself and others. Even after her
retirement from Mount St. Mary’s Academy, she remained an active member
of many services and civil rights organizations, including Housing
Opportunities Made Equal.
The award, created in 1995 at the behest
of Joanne Champion Granger’s husband, Dr. Carl Granger, is granted to a
high school senior who demonstrates a commitment to the ideals by which
she lived: academic excellence, pride of work, and commitment to human
rights.
The Joanne Champion Granger Scholarship
administered by the Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo, is funded
under the auspices of Dr. Carl Granger and the Board of Directors of
HOME.
The criteria for applicants is as follows:
be a college bound high school senior attending school in Erie or
Niagara County; have maintained a “B” average verified by an official
transcript; demonstrate in an original essay and by actions a commitment
to human rights and/or equal opportunity in housing; and be nominated by
school personnel or community leader familiar with the student’s
activities.
The deadline for applicants to submit
information is February 11, 2005. There is one first-place award of
$500.00 and one second place award of $250.00. It is the policy of the
Community Foundation for Greater Buffalo that the award shall not reduce
any other aid provided to the student.
As in past years, the scholarship
committee is offering to send a speaker to interested schools and
organizations to discuss the scholarship and the important work that it
honors-the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, the work of Joanne Champion
Granger, and the work that the students themselves are doing to further
the cause of civil rights and fair housing.
For more information or to request a
speaker, please call 854-1400. Further information and applications are
available online at www.homeny.org.
