Ormond Beach Elks Lodge presents $38,500 to local high school seniors

Ormond Beach Observer
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The Ormond Beach Elks Lodge held its annual scholarship banquet on May, honoring several of the area’s brightest high school seniors and their families with a certificate of recognition and dinner.

This year, the Ormond Beach Elks awarded a total of $38,500, which included $3,000 in Lodge scholarships, $31,500 on behalf of the Florida State Elks Association, and an additional $4,000 on behalf of the Elks National Foundation to students from four area high schools: Seabreeze High School, Mainland High School, Atlantic High School and Spruce Creek High School. Banquet guests included student recipients, parents, grandparents and family members, high school principals and administrators, as well as the Florida State Elks Association State Secretary Carl Seibert, the FSEA HOPE Scholarship Chairman Joe Pepe, East Central District ENF Scholarship Chairman Paul Leonard, as well as the vice mayor of Ormond Beach, Harold Briley.

Receiving $1,000 scholarships from the Ormond Beach Elks Lodge were Spruce Creek High School seniors, Tiden Burch and Kaiden Kolis, and Mainland High School’s Xaria McCoy.

Scholarship recipients Xaria McCoy, Wyatt Kent, Tiden Burch, Luke Womack, Kaiden Kolis, Cole Brown and Kaila Bellamy. Courtesy photo

Spruce Creek’s Tiden Burch was also awarded an additional $4,000 "Most Valuable Student" scholarship from the Elks National Foundation. Annually, the Elks National Foundation awards a total of 500 Most Valuable Student Scholarships, nationwide, totaling over $2 million.

The Ormond Beach Elks Lodge also presented a total of six C. Valentine Bates Memorial HOPE Scholarships on behalf of the Florida State Elks Association to Wyatt Kent and Luke Womack, of Seabreeze High School, and Xaria McCoy, in the amount of $7,500 each. Scholarships in the amount of $3,000 each were presented to Seabreeze High School students Cole Brown and Kylee Robertson and Atlantic High School senior Kaila Bellamy.

Local students garnered 30% of the Florida State Elks Association’s 21 HOPE scholarships, statewide. The HOPE Scholarship is awarded to seniors with an unweighted GPA between 2.3 and 3.59 who have demonstrated leadership through participation in school activities, community service, and citizenship, and who have born additional responsibility throughout their high school careers to provide support to siblings or family.

Scholarships are open to all high school seniors. The 2025 Elks National Foundation Most Valuable Student Scholarship application opens August 1, 2024 and will be available at https://www.elks.org/scholars/scholarships/mvs.cfm.

For more information on the Florida State Elks Association C. Valentine Bates Memorial HOPE Scholarship, please visit https://www.floridaelks.org/hope-scholarship.