YWCA Accepting Scholarship Applications
The YWCA of Greater Cincinnati is offering a scholarship opportunity for African American female high school seniors who have overcome significant obstacles. Ten local, female, African American female students will be selected to receive the YWCA Mamie Earl Sells Scholarship. The scholarship recognizes young African-American women who have been successful despite having to overcome significant hardships. The YWCA not only offers
YWCA of Greater Cincinnati 2015 scholarship recipient, Lily-Michelle Arthur from Norwood High School, is with YWCA Career Women of Achievement Keynote Speaker Geena Davis
financial support to the students, but also an opportunity to meet and learn from some of Greater Cincinnati’s most successful, empowered career women, as the young women are invited to attend the 37th Annual YWCA Career Women of Achievement Luncheon on Wednesday, May 11, 2016.
The YWCA Mamie Earl Sells Scholarship Fund was established in 1993 to provide financial assistance and support to an outstanding African-American female high school senior entering a post-secondary institution. There is 1 winner who receives $3,000, 2 Runners-Up receive $1000 each, 7 Honorable Mentions receive $250 each.
The application deadline is Thursday, January 21, 2016. Applications are available at www.ywcacincinnati.org/mes
Meet the 2015 Scholarship Winner
Lily-Michelle Arthur’s family’s hopes for a better life in Cincinnati crumbled soon after they arrived from their native Ghana. Her parents divorced, and the then Norwood High School teenager began handling household duties and caring for her siblings while her mother worked at a minimum-wage job. That experience was Lily-Michelle’s lesson in adaptation. She vowed to strive for high academic grades and success in whatever she did. Last year when she won the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati’s Mamie Earls Sells Scholarship presented by Kroger, she was ranked first in her class with a GPA of 3.9, wass Norwood High School’s senior class president, founder of the school’s Key Club and a member of the National Honor Society and Academic Team. She also volunteered at Good Samaritan and Christ Hospitals.
Lily-Michelle attends Emory University and is studying pre-med. She wants to be a pediatric neurologist and dreams of serving in humanitarian medical missions around the world.
“I want to leave behind a legacy that success is attainable despite personal or social challenges,” she said.
