$10,000 Scholarship for Princess Four

When Princess Four was younger, someone she trusted and looked up to at the time told her she wouldn't be able to go to college due to lack of funds if she didn't make a certain choice they felt she should make. She felt forced and didn't know what to do. It gave her great stress for years. 

Somehow, during that difficult and vulnerable stage in her development, she believed what she was told. 

Since the time, for YEARS, she would stress and worry about how she was going to college and how she would "pay" for it. 

We talked about it over and over but somehow she still had it stuck in her head that without this "thing" in her life, she wouldn't be able to make it on her own. I kept trying to show her that her sisters have made it through school with no debt and graduated early with money in the bank but for some reason, she has had a hard time with trusting it would be ok. 

A few years ago, we had that "talk" yet again one night. One of the local banks has an account for children that if they get A's on their report cards, they will pay them $1 for each A every term and put them into a drawing for $100 gift cards. I signed Princess four up just a few days earlier for the account figuring during Jr High and High school, she would be able to get an accumulation going.

The NEXT day, after we had our talk, I get a call from the bank president from our local branch all excited that Princess number Four's name had been drawn for one of the $100 dollar scholarships. I thought it wasn't a big deal until he told me that only one other time they had someone from our town win as it is a "bank wide" program. He asked me if I was "OK" with them going to the school and taking a picture while giving her the certificate? I told him I was fine but I would like to be there to video or take a picture and asked him to let me know when they were doing it. 

I guess they went over to ask and the principle announced it at the school and called her to his office right then. Someone from the bank took this photo so they could send it to corporate or something and since I missed taking one of my own, they emailed me this one. I appreciated the picture but it was quite dark and I was sad I didn't get to see her face when they told her as we had just the night before had another discussion about trusting in God that she would be able to go to college and not worry about "outside support."

When she arrived home, and I found out she already knew about winning, I asked her what she thought about it. She answered me with this, "I think God is trying to tell me that I should trust him and not worry about college and that He will take care of it." I told her that I thought that was EXACTLY what her Heavenly Father was trying to tell her. 

Since that time, she has worried less about it especially when she sees how well her older sisters have done. Princess Three is making money at school and will probably have more in the bank than I do by the time she graduates. 

Princess Four works very hard at getting good grades and making sure she keeps up so that she can get scholarship offers but she has done so much extra curricular activities that she will have NO problem I am sure. However, she went to HOBY last year and this year as a Jr. Staff and they offer scholarships to Students around the state that have attended HOBY. (Hugh O'brian Youth Leadership) 

To be considered in the scholarship pool, they have several criteria that they review such as: hours of service, leadership, community activity, grades etc. They have the students make a book and put pictures of the events and descriptions into the books.They get three amazing people from the community to judge the books that have nothing to do with HOBY and they place "Points" on each thing the student did and at the end, they tally them up and the student with the highest score gets to choose a scholarship offered from the state's colleges. Most of the colleges offered 4 year full scholarships (at least one) and then a few 2 year scholarships.

Because Princess Four wants to follow in her sisters foot steps and go to a Jr. College for two years to get an associates degree, she knew she would get a scholarship to that school based on grades and leadership as all of her sisters had gotten one and we know the criteria. With that knowledge, she didn't want to take a 2 year scholarship to that college as she wanted to make sure she would have a scholarship for the two years it would take after that for her Bachelors degree to a more expensive College in the state. She chose the College Princess Two attended which is about as far from home as you can get in the state and attend college but has an excellent reputation. 

Out of the almost 30 students that applied for the scholarship around the state, Princess Four was chosen number 4. Isn't that ironic? I think she is so used to being call "Four" on my blog and her middle name means "4" in another language that I somehow brainwashed her that she needed to be picked fourth. :-) 

We spent a few weeks gathering all the information needed and getting pictures printed and "scrapbooking" everything so we could send it in. I spent so much money and time on the book that when they told us that we couldn't get the book back, I wanted to make a copy of it. I actually made color copies of every page and sent in the copies and kept the cute scrapbook for Princess Four.

Between the copies, picture printing and mailing, I spent about $75. I paid $25 for the dinner at the awards banquet and about $60 in gas getting there along with some for the camps but in the end, she had such a wonderful experience and getting to choose fourth in the rotation for scholarships, she got a $10,000 Deans Scholarship for the two years she will be attending and the other two year scholarships for that school were only for $6,000. 

I smiled and asked her at the dinner if she thought she needed to worry about being able to pay for college anymore? She smiled and had such a glow as she KNEW God had taken care of all of it for her.

She got up to speak at the awards dinner and many of the recipients were dry and listing their accomplishments and I was so proud of her that she was the only one to publicly thank the organizer and speakers for their time and service as well as joking about how many clothes she could buy with the millions he has given away in scholarships over the years. I was so grateful that she gave Gratitude! 

After waking everyone with her jokes, she shared about how HOBY helped her overcome her fear of singing and speaking in public. Not that she still doesn't like it but it helped her overcome the fear of letting it keep her from doing it. (She is actually speaking in our church this Sunday reporting on her Service Mission to Thailand)
 
She talked about how it helped her sing and speak and run for Student Body President. (See that post here) Her words were impressive and I am not just saying that because I am her mother. Before that, I looked around and people were wispering and reading the program, texting etc. During her talk, she had their attention. I have no doubt that this Princess is going places. 

Now, we just have to get her over her belief that she needs to be fourth all the time. In my book, she is Number 1! ;-)