In Their Words | Manchester Essex Education Fund

 The Sally Weld Memorial Scholarship is awarded to Manchester Essex students that displayed rigor in academics, leadership, and service in their four years. As a recipient of this scholarship, I have been fortunate enough to receive financial support to study biology at the College of Wooster. In my time here, I have continued to carry these core values of the scholarship’s foundation: strong academics, leadership, and service. I owe a great deal of the opportunities I have been presented with in the last year to the excellent education I received at Manchester Essex and the financial support of organizations such as the Manchester Essex Education Fund, which awards the Sally Weld Memorial Scholarship.

I was awarded a MERHS Scholarship in 1989. The financial assistance provided a necessary uplift and enabled me to attend the college of my choice. I grew as an undergraduate student, blossomed as a person, redefined myself in graduate school and forged relationships along the way that I cherish still to this day. My career is established and my daily work ensures my clients are safer, are able to act quickly at the time of a disaster and gets them back to normal operations as quickly as possible. My employer is the industry leader and a “Fortune 500” company, but I believe my customers appreciate that I have small town roots as much as any of it.THANK YOU very much MERHS scholarship committee. I hope you continue to enrich and enable the future of this great country.

As a grateful recipient of scholarships from the original Manchester Education Fund, and as one of those hundreds of kids lucky enough to learn debating from Tim Averill, I am so proud that the MEEF continues to create access to opportunities for kids from Manchester and Essex!

I have received grants form the Averill Debate Fund twice and with it was provided with the opportunity to attend a summer institution in an effort to develop my debating ability. Being one of the most influential experiences of my life, I am incredibly grateful for the MEEF and Mr. Averill. Debate has truly defined me as a person and allowed me to think on levels that I never would have been exposed to without it. I believe that debate is an exceptionally important program at MERHS and much of that is owed to the work of the MEEF and Mr. Averill. I hope that future students continue to benefit from the MEEF and find the same passion towards debate that I have.