The Westerner for March 4, 2013

George Grover Scholarship Winners:  former member of our club, Ron Hutchinson, told a bit about George Grover before he introduced the scholarship winners.  Each winner received $6,500 this year which makes $275,000 given over 12 years.  George was a realtor who focused on education in the realty industry plus integrity in every thing.  Scholarships are available to students in any field of study, 3 recipients per year, they require superior academic achievement, be registered in second to fourth year of their program, exhibit tremendous community and other volunteer activity, show some financial need.

Debraj Das, a 24 year old medical student formerly studying at Old Strathcona High, has a BSc and is currently handling a double major in biological and physical sciences.  He has shown leadership in the medical faculty as vice president of a conference of medical students from both U of A and U of C.  The conference tries to give advice on how medical practitioners can balance their life style - work , family, personal.  In the community, Debraj works hard with Big Brothers Big Sisters where he hosts soccer superstars to enable children from poor family backgrounds to get involved.  On the international scene, he recently deployed to Nepal where he worked on a medical elective in a small local hospital.  After hours he and other volunteers helped in the Nepalese community working with kids by teaching English and setting up activites.  His future is in General Internal Medicine

Qaasim Mian is in second year science heading for medical school.  He gets involved with innercity youth and is an Oiler fan.  He particpates in lots of community activites, previously in high school and now in university to get a well rounded background.  He is president of the Heart & Stroke Foundation on campus; he is co-founder and president of Student on Student Mentoring and is president of the campus Muslim student association.  Through Heart & Stroke he promotes good cardio health; sets up fund raisers and works on reducing junk food on campus.  Student on Student Mentoring works in an innercity junior high school where there is an 80% vulnerabilty that students will not particpate in the curriculum because of various interferences, especially lack of parental support.  It is hard to work with these students but perserverance eventually pays off.  Over time, some of the students start to focus more on studies and relate to other students.  Qaasim appreciates the different prespectives gained from interfaith relationships gained through his Muslim Association activities.

Danny Hoang lost a family member to cancer.  He is currently studying in oncology via second year biochemistry and wants to address all the needs of others to restore their overall well being.  Since 2009 he has been a youth ambassador for Canadian Blood Services where he asks young people to donate.  A chemo survivor thanked the group he works with which gave him the realization that the efforts were helping and appreciated.  The U of A consistently wins the inter university blood donation challenges both locally and across Canada.  Danny also volunteers at the Stollery Children's Hospital working with the patients and their families.  Further, he founded the Kids Help Committee @ the U of A where they work with the Kids Help Line Association.  He has a T Shirt campaign going to bring the focus on talking about mental health rather than ignoring it.  In youth education, he realized there is a lack of research opportunities for rural students so he is trying to gain access @ the U of A labs for these students.  All of Danny's activities work towards the goal of restoration of well being for others.  He plans to become a medical doctor.

The three winners were thanked by Ingrid.