Good Deed Pays Off
CMHS senior nationally recognized for ‘Homes of Hope’ projectBy LINDSAY DAVIS — ldavis@lockhaven.com
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But earning two scholarships because of her efforts to build that home certainly runs a close second.
Brandt was named one of Pennsylvania’s top two youth volunteers by the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards last month. And in February, she was recognized as a 2007-08 Coca-Cola Scholar, one of 250 students nationwide to receive the honor.
Both accolades are accompanied by monetary gifts — either $1,000 or $5,000 from Prudential Financial Inc. and either a $10,000 or $20,000 four-year scholarship from Coca-Cola Scholars Foundation.
“I’ve been filling out a lot of scholarship applications lately. This (the Prudential Spirit of Community Award) was the first one I got, so I was pretty happy,” Brandt said.
She plans to apply the scholarships toward her education at Cornell University, where she plans to study beginning this fall. She is undecided as to what her major will be.
“I want to go to law school, so it’ll probably be history or political science,” she said.
She will find out how much financial help she will receive after finalist events in April and May. Brandt will face other Coca-Cola Scholars April 24 in Atlanta, Ga., for a four-day event, including interviews with a national selection committee, a community service project with Coca-Cola Company associates and a banquet. Only 50 finalists will receive the $20,000 award, while the remaining 200 will receive $10,000.
In early May, she will attend a gala awards ceremony for the Prudential Spirit of Community Awards at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., tour the capital’s landmarks and visit congressional representatives on Capitol Hill. She could be chosen by that national selection committee as one of five high school finalists to receive the $5,000 award. If not, she will receive the $1,000 scholarship.
Accompanying the higher award would be a matching $5,000 grant from the Prudential Foundation to be donated to a nonprofit, charitable organization of her choice. Brandt said if she received this award, she would likely donate her grant to a children’s charity. She credited this decision to her past involvement in Children Helping Children, an organization she founded with her older brother and sister. Through CHC, she helped to raise over $5,000 for children of 9/11 victims and close to $2,000 for children of the 2004 Sri Lanka tsunami victims.
Her scholarship-winning Homes for Hope project was by far the biggest community service effort she had ever been involved in, Brandt said.
She collected more than $20,000 and donated materials and services to build a modular home for Myrtle Ashley, an 80-year-old Pass Christian, Miss., resident who lost her home in Hurricane Katrina. She initiated and orchestrated the 16-month project, with help from friends, community members and CMHS drafting and construction trades classes.
To add a personal touch to the home, Brandt talked to Ashley’s daughter to find out how she might like her bedroom decorated, then painted floral designs on the walls of the room. And Kristin traveled with the home in November 2006 to see it was delivered safely and to meet Ashley.
“It was a really neat experience. She (Ashley) and her family have to be some of the nicest people down there,” Brandt said.
The trip only reaffirmed her belief in helping others.
“There’s always something you can do for someone else, even if it’s the smallest thing,” she said.
Brandt is also involved in Central Mountain athletics and extracurricular activities. She represents the school on the girls’ basketball and track and field teams. She also participates in school dramas and musical productions. She is president of Student Council and the Key Club and secretary for the CMHS Class of 2008.
For more information, visit www.coca-colascholars.org or www.prudential.com/spirit.
