Bursaries help students pursue education
Administrator | Aug 07, 2012 | Comments 0
The Prince Edward County Community Foundation celebrated three County students with the presentation of bursaries it manages.
The most recent addition to the foundation’s bursary funds is the Guenther Wetzel Trades Bursary. The foundation also manages the Willi Fida Culinary Bursary, established in 2010 and the Prince Edward County Arts Council’s Student Arts Award since 2011.
The late Guenther Wetzel believed in the real value of tradespeople – electricians, plumbers, welders, carpenters, masons, and all those other skilled workers without whom nothing would get built and nothing would function. To honour Guenther’s appreciation for these folk, and to encourage young people to pursue a career in a trade, his wife Donna Havery Wetzel established the Guenther Wetzel Trades Bursary.
The inaugural winner of the Wetzel trades bursary is Danny Thompson, who is going on to Loyalist College to become a Manufacturing Engineering Technician. The Wetzel bursary is just one of the awards he has received, all of which add up to enough to pay for his first semester. Parents Lisa and Paul are thrilled, noting that with two teenagers going off to school in the fall, the awards help.
Wetzel was thrilled to meet the recipient of the first award.
“The kind of student Danny is, the career he is looking forward to, along with his obvious work ethic, is exactly why I established this bursary” she says. “He is just the kind of person Guenther would have wanted to encourage”.
As with the Wetzel bursary, the Willi Fida Culinary Bursary was established to honour the memory of a loved one. The bursary was established by the friends and family of Willi Fida, to honour his efforts to develop fine culinary experiences in Prince Edward County. He passed away in 2007. His two children, Alexandre and Melanie, continue to run the restaurant.
This year’s winner, Marlayna Church, is going into her second year of culinary arts at Loyalist. This is the second Fida bursary for her, a reflection of her dedication to her studies and her craft. The Fida family continue to hold an annual fund raiser to bring money into the fund so that students like Marlayna, and their families, continue to get support for their education.
The Arts Council award was presented last month to Jemima Heinricks, a talented County student going on to post secondary education in the arts.
“These bursaries are a wonderful example of legacies that will support the County community for years,” said Joan Pennefather, President of the CCF board. “Whether they were established to honour a loved one’s passion, or to promote an organization’s field of interest to the next generation, they are a valuable means of support for County youth who want to pursue post-secondary education.”
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