A long pause followed when Danielle Kobelka from Earl Marriott Secondary in Surrey, B.C was told she won the 2012 eventIQ Grad Scholarship.

“Really?”she said in stunned disbelief. No whoops or cheers but I’m pretty sure I heard her exhale; a sense of relief when the news was delivered.

“Really,” I said. “You won!”

Soft spoken, but with a confidence in her voice that is rare for someone her age, Danielle says the money is going to good use as she is attending BCIT in the fall, taking broadcast and media studies.

Danielle won the 2012 eventIQ scholarship because she best met the objective of going the extra mile to make grad extra special. She summed up the importance of the yearbook with this quote:

“There is no worse feeling then receiving your yearbook and you’re excited to look through the book for pictures of yourself and there are no pictures! I do everything possible to make sure I get a picture of EVERY grad in our book!”

As if being yearbook editor for two years in a row wasn’t enough, Danielle also raised money for the schools’ dry grad through a dinner that grad parents cooked and students served. Her leadership skills came to the forefront again as the chief organizer and she motivated 50 other grads (a record for the school) to help with the fundraiser and together they raised $12,000!

Choosing a winner was agonizing! Besides the internal selection committee we asked for help from teachers, grad coordinators and administrators at schools and they helped us whittle down the candidates.  If an application wasn’t chosen it was simply because the three in front of them, in our opinion, were just that good in expressing their impact on graduation.

We are offering a scholarship again next year and we hope for more applications and of course more great stories.