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Scholarships target Eagle Point seniors Projects must benefit community By VICKI GUARINO EAGLE POINT -- A new scholarship program is giving high school seniors a way to help the community while they help themselves pay for future education. And ultimately, say organizers of Youth SOAR -- Service Oriented Action and Responsibility -- they hope the program will draw teenagers and their communities closer together. "This is a great opportunity for the community to recognize our youth and what they are capable of doing," says Samantha Steele, an Eagle Point High School academic adviser and a member of the SOAR program board. The program begins this school year with three selected community-improvement projects to be proposed, designed and carried out by the scholarship applicants. The top finisher will receive $2,000, and two runners-up will receive $500. Awards can be used for any post-high school education. The SOAR board is soliciting both student scholarship entries and funds for the cash awards. Eagle Point High School seniors are hearing details about the program this week. They will have until Jan. 4 to submit entries. The three top entries will be selected Jan. 5. Applications will be judged primarily on their long-term benefit to the community, says SOAR board member Jeannette Blankenship, supervisor of the Eagle Point library. "That's not just this week or this year, but a legacy that will benefit the community for many years," Blankenship says. Because Eagle Point High School draws students from Trail, Shady Cove and White City as well as Eagle Point, the projects could focus on any one of those towns, or the rural neighborhoods in between. The idea for a community service scholarship stemmed from a wide-ranging survey of students last spring. The survey was part of a project launched by parents to strengthen bonds of support between adults and youth. Called "asset building," the project seeks to improve community life by improving conditions for youth. The better conditions are, the more assets kids will have for building better lives, says Theresa Erickson, one of the project organizers. The scholarship targets one of the most worrisome results of the survey, says Erickson -- that 19 percent of students felt the community didn't value them. "We think that is significant," Erickson says. In mulling over survey results and possible actions, Eagle Point parents, educators and city officials decided to copy a scholarship program from Butte Falls. In Butte Falls, scholarship-seeking students have started their own teen club, leveled the town's baseball field and created a visitor center at the falls on Big Butte Creek. Like the projects in Butte Falls, the SOAR projects will require students to map out in detail what they will do, including making plans to cover any expenses that may be involved and recruit volunteers if extra help is needed. The entire project will have to be finished by May. Steele says winning applicants "are going to have to be great leaders who can pull things together to make it happen." At the same time, she says, the project's focus on the community should lure all kinds of students. "This is not just about the top three or four students you hear about over and over, the best athlete or the A student. This is for anybody," Steele says. Blankenship says she has no preconceived notions about the kinds of projects she'd like to see students undertake. "I'm excited about anything that gets kids involved in their community," Blankenship says. "I'm going to wait to see what the kids propose." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA