Senior Awards Night Celebration

May 23rd was a proud evening as Germantown’s High School seniors gathered with their parents, school faculty and business leaders to celebrate their academic success and receive their hard earned college scholarships and awards. The Senior Awards Night opened with speeches by Germantown Superintendent Dr. Susan Borden who welcomed parents, guests and scholarship presenters. One of the highlights of the night was the representative from the fire department who spoke about the history of the Germantown Scholarship fund and how the fire department granted seed money, which was the beginning of GCSF. The evening distributed 79 Germantown Community Scholarship Fund Scholarships along with dozens of scholastic and athletic scholarships ranging from several hundred to many thousands per student for the class of 2012's academic goals.

Five Germantown teachers received teacher grants by GCSF; Vicki Umhoefer shared her plans to implement the MeMoves program, which encourages physical activity for Germantown’s students. Liz Diedrich, Kevin Erickson, and Vicki Friemoth, an Amy Belle fifth grade teaching team, plan to purchase SimplicityCam document cameras to enhance classroom learning. Monica Holmi Stank, also an Amy Belle teacher, will buy materials to implement a new reading series. Cassandra Hanson from the Germantown High School intends to use her grant for a SmartBoard training workshop. Lastly, Jeffery A. Thielke from Kennedy Middle School plans to purchase a Mighty Heat Press to allow students to transform design work into graphic displays.

Senior Awards Night is hosted by the Germantown Community Scholarship Fund, whose sole purpose is to raise funds for Germantown's graduating seniors. Their primary fund raising activity is an Annual Dinner & Auction held every year on the First Thursday in February at the Quilted Bear. Since its inception, GCSF has awarded more than $1.85 million to 1,931 graduating seniors to be used at colleges, universities and vocational / technical schools. As a non-profit organization, GCSF relies on charitable contributions to continue meeting its contribution goals. To find out more about GCSF, the scholarships it awards, or to make a donation, please visit the GCSF website at www.germantownscholarship.org or contact Deb Stresing at 414-690-0158 or by email, dstresing@germantownscholarship.org.