Item Photo By OWEN O’ROURKE
This year’s Posse scholars were honored at the Lynn Rotary Club lunch at the Porthole Restaurant on Thursday. Front row from left, Jennifer Duran, Lynn Classical; Tiana Evelyn, Lynn Classical; back row, Carlos Espindola, Lynn English; Jessica DeJoie, Lynn Classical; and Corinne Jean-Gilles, KIPP Academy.
By THOR JOURGENSEN
LYNN — A year ago Carlos Espindola couldn’t imagine setting his sights on attending a college beyond Boston. But, on Thursday the English High School senior and four other students told Rotary Club of Lynn members how competing for Posse scholarships expanded their horizons.
Espindola is headed to Hamilton College in New York and, if he gets homesick, he will have a “posse” of fellow scholars to talk to and share experiences.
Like Classical High School seniors Jessica DeJoie, Tiana Evelyn and Jennifer Duran and Knowledge is Power Program senior Corinne Jean-Gilles, Espindola was nominated, last spring, for an opportunity to attend college tuition-free. He endured a four month-long interview process that shrunk the 1,400 initial Boston-area nominees to 60 college-bound Posse scholars.
“When I was nominated, I didn’t see it happening, but as I went through each round, it became more real,” said DeJoie.
She is attending Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, along with Evelyn, a daughter of immigrants from the island of Barbados who will get the college education her parents did not have the opportunity to achieve.
“To have a child going to college makes them really happy,” she said.
English High guidance counselor Matt Wilkins said Posse scholarships were awarded, beginning in 1989, to provide tuition-free opportunities for students and also to ensure that other students, who went through the Posse selection process, attend the same college.
Rotary members applauded the students during the club’s luncheon at the Porthole Restaurant. Club President Raymond Bastarache said Rotary is committed to helping Lynn schools and saluting their students.
Even if they are from different communities, the common experience of surviving the Posse interview process bonds the students and, Wilkins said, motivates them to excel academically and demonstrate campus leadership skills.
“These are all-around great kids who want to succeed,” Wilkins said.
Classical High guidance counselor Shanna Comeau said the average tuition savings Posse scholars receive is $140,000 over four years. Getting picked to be a scholar is not easy. DeJoie said the interviews and team-building exercises gave her a new perspective on her abilities and boosted her confidence.
“It was an eye-opening process,” she said.
KIPP senior Jean-Gilles said her Posse scholarship acknowledges leadership skills she had to develop as a child when her mother left Haiti to start a new life in the United States, before arranging for her children to join her.
She called the Posse selection process “difficult” and “nerve-wracking,” but said “it made me really proud to know I made it to the next round.” She will study engineering at Union College.
KIPP guidance counselor Jorge Ochoa called Jean-Gilles “a hard worker” who triumphed over adversity.
Thor Jourgensen can be reached at [email protected].
