Around Town

Five NCHS Class of ’16 Grads Awarded Kiwanis Club’s ‘Harold S. Kenney Scholarship’

By |

On Thursday, the Kiwanis Club of New Canaan awarded five 2016 New Canaan High School graduates with scholarships recognizing the students’ academic and extracurricular accomplishments. The Harold S. Kenney Scholarship award was named for a longtime Kiwanian and NCHS headmaster who retired in 1973, a summer camp business manager and hockey coach who was named a Hay Fellow in the Humanities by Williams College in 1961. After receiving 10 applications described as “all worthy of support from the club” and “amazing on paper and in person,” the Kiwanis Club’s scholarship committee made a tough decision and chose these five applicants, according to club member Tucker Murphy. “We should all feel proud that we can help these students,” said Murphy. Sophie Salomon, entering DePaul University this fall with a possible Film Production area of specialization, compiled a cumulative GPA at New Canaan High School of 86.

Around Town

Local Nonprofits Receive Grant Allocations from Kiwanis Club of New Canaan

By |

Thanks to the Kiwanis Club of New Canaan, 24 local organizations on Friday received a boost to their funding. The international nonprofit, whose mission is “Serving the children of the world,” handed out checks to local organizations that address youth during its annual allocations breakfast. This year, the Kiwanis Club allocated a total of $9,620 which comes almost entirely from fundraising events—mainly the Zerbini Family Circus, which also benefits the New Canaan YMCA and will be held Saturday, June 18. Beth Jones, head of the Kiwanis Allocations Committee, said nonprofits seeking support undergo a multi-step process. “We start by looking at how much money we have to give away,” Jones said during the breakfast, held at the Y. “Once we get all the applications in, we sit down, they usually come to my house for lunch, and we go through all of the applications and eliminate the ones that do not fit our mission of helping children of the world.”

Once the Allocations Committee prioritizes which groups they want to allocate funds to, Jones and the rest of the committee, “presents it to the entire Kiwanis Club, we vote on it, and then we give the final list to the treasurer.”

“It is usually very amicable process,” Jones said.