Karson Stevenson, an eighth-grader at Hightower Trail Middle School in East Cobb, is one of five middle school students in the Cobb County School District who was awarded a $10,000 college scholarship this week.
It’s called a REACH Scholarship, after REACH Georgia, a needs-based mentorship and scholarship program, and the Cobb Schools Foundation, a philanthropic arm of the Cobb school district that supports the needs of students.
Under the REACH program, qualified students receive $4,000 in scholarship aid from the Cobb Schools Foundation, and REACH Georgia will match it by 2.5 times for a total scholarship worth $10,000.
Since its inception in 2012, Georgia REACH has provided scholarship assistance to many students who are first-generation college/post-secondary-bound students.
The students will get their scholarships after high school graduation, with criteria including maintaining a 2.5-HOPE -grade-point-average. They also must “continue to have good behavior and school attendance, and to meet with a volunteer mentor and academic coach throughout high school,” according to a Cobb school district release.
Members of the Cobb school district front office, including Superintendent Chris Ragsdale, were in attendance at a scholarship signing ceremony this week.
Karson Stevenson will be attending Pope High School next year.
Kimberly Martin, Karson’s mother, said in the release that “I just know that he always just been a special child. For somebody to come step up here and actually tell him that and just express that he was actually chosen, it just means so much to me. It just makes my mommy heart so full.”
His father, Kevin Stevenson, said his advice for his son is to “keep going. Don’t give up. Life gives you curveballs, ups, downs. You [will] get happy, you [will] get sad, but through it all, you just keep going and give it your best.”
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