EDITORIAL: Commitment to our youth continues (09/03/00)

EDITORIAL

Commitment to our youth continues

"What sculpture is to a block of marble, education is to the soul."

- Joseph Addison, English essayist (1672-1719).

This week's front page carries a news story about the Ukrainian National Association's Scholarship Program by means of which this fraternal organization this year has allocated $25,300 to deserving students working toward undergraduate degrees at colleges and universities throughout North America as they seek to build their futures.

A total of 141 students, two universities and one high school are the beneficiaries of the awards for the 2000-2001 academic year.

The UNA annually provides these scholarships as a way to support its young members and to encourage them to pursue higher education. In the case of the two universities, the stipends are intended for students of Ukrainian studies at the University of Alberta and the University of Manitoba; the high school that benefits from the UNA grant is Immaculate Conception Ukrainian Catholic High School in Hamtramck, Mich.

Through its Scholarship Program - which has been functioning informally almost since the UNA's establishment in 1894 - the UNA has always cared for the welfare and advancement of its members. The formal scholarship came into being after the 25th UNA Convention voted in 1962 to establish a program to assist Ukrainian students, particularly those majoring in Ukrainian-related fields, political science, history and journalism. Acting on the convention's resolution, the UNA Supreme Assembly at its 1964 annual meeting instituted the UNA Scholarship Committee and allocated a sum of $2,000 for the first annual scholarship awards for academic year 1964-1965.

The funds disbursed annually have grown exponentially since then, as seen from a perusal of UNA reports. UNA records also indicate that from 1946 through 1999 the Ukrainian National Association has awarded more than $1.77 million to approximately 4,500 students. (Earlier donations, grants as small as $20 given to needy students, were not listed in UNA records specifically as student scholarships.)

This year's scholarship recipients then, are just the latest group in a long line of students who have benefited from this critically important fraternal benefit provided by the fraternal benefit society of which they are members. (A fraternal benefit that, it should be noted, is only one of many the UNA offers to its members of all ages in addition to the life insurance coverage members purchase by applying for membership.)

And, as always, the UNA has demonstrated that it cares for our youths' intellectual and spiritual enrichment and, by extension, for the future of our community, which the youth of today will someday lead.

| Home Page |