Each year the Dan River Nonprofit Network holds a Volunteer of the Year Contest to celebrate those throughout the community that go above and beyond with their engagement in the Dan River Region. For the second year in a row, an Averett University student took home the win.

Taylor Doss, Averett sophomore business major, won the 2017 Volunteer of the Year award, voted on by the public. Doss is an Averett Bonner Leader and a cheerleader for the University.

A political science and Africana studies double major from Terre Haute, Sarah Fears established the Intercultural Conversation Facilitator program in DePauw's Office of Multicultural Student Services. As a Bonner Scholar, she served the Greencastle community by teaching English as a Second Language at Tzouanakis Elementary School and serving as community service soordinator for the school's Student Friend program, which provides mentors to third-through-fifth graders.

Parker Lawson, a 2015 graduate of Centre College, has won a Gates Cambridge Scholarship, created in 2000 with a $210 million endowment from Bill and Melinda Gates.

A Spanish and international studies double major from Prospect, Lawson was elected to both Phi Beta Kappa and Omicron Delta Kappa, made the dean’s list and was named to honor societies in Spanish and political science. Lawson was also a Bonner Scholar at Centre, which requires a minimum of 10 hours of community service each week.

Stockton University junior Jodie Davis, a Public Health major and Chemistry minor, has earned a fully funded scholarship with United Planet to travel to Ghana for eight weeks this summer to work on global health service projects.

Davis was the only student in the nation to be fully funded in this competitive educational scholarship opportunity, which was made possible through the Bonner Foundation national network and her work as an AmeriCorps Bonner Leader in the university’s Office of Service-Learning.

Hicks, a native of Spartanburg, graduated from Wofford with degrees in government and finance; he is also a Gates Millennium Scholar, a Bonner Scholar and a Truman Scholar. Hicks recently completed a research stay at the Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality. An aspiring civil rights attorney, he is a federal analyst at Deloitte.

As a Mitchell Scholar, Hicks will study race, ethnicity and conflict at Trinity College Dublin beginning in September 2017.

We were happy to announce that four Bonners were selected as Newman Own's Foundation Fellows. This is the second year The Bonner Foundation has partnered with Newman's Own to identify strong candidates. These Bonners will be joining eight other fellows from across the nation as part of the Class of 2018 Fellows.

We have featured a brief profile for each Bonner with information on where they will be working and their personal reflection on how their Bonner experience has prepared them for this new venture.

Campus Compact, a Boston-based non-profit organization working to advance the public purposes of higher education, has announced the 273 students who will make up the organization’s 2017 cohort of Newman Civic Fellows. The Newman Civic Fellowship is a one-year fellowship for community-committed college students from Campus Compact member institutions.

Of the 273 students, the following twelve Bonner Scholar/Leaders received this honor.

On March 15, 2017,  the Watson Foundation announced the 49th class of Thomas J. Watson Fellows. The Watson provides a year of unparalleled international exploration for select graduating college seniors in any field. Two of the 40 fellows are Bonner Scholars; Imani Lewis-Norelle, Earlham College, and Tyler Harvey, Rhodes College. 

Angel Vela de la Garza Evia ’18, a student at Washington and Lee University, has won a $10,000 Davis Projects for Peace grant that will allow him to conduct a three-phased STEM-related project — STEMito — for primary school students in his home city of Monterrey, Mexico. 

“If, through this program, we can motivate the students to continue their academic trajectory and make them realize that they can study STEM, then I am willing to put in all my effort to start making the difference.” - Angel Vela de la Garza Evia