One student from every elementary school in Lee County has been awarded a Carson Scholars Fund.
The Carson Scholars Fund is a combination of the Ben Carson Reading Projects and Carson Scholarships, programs to promote reading and award academic excellence.
A total of 48 fifth-grade students were awarded $1,000 Carson scholarships and a medal of honor for earning a 3.75 GPA or higher and being active in the community. Students also had to be nominated by their respective school principal.
The Foundation for Lee County Public Schools will award the scholarships to the local students at an award banquet hosted March 5 from 6:30-8:30 p.m. at the Harborside Event Center in Fort Myers. According to the foundation, Dr. Benjamin Carson, a Johns Hopkins pediatric neurosurgeon who founded the scholarships program in 1994, will attend as keynote speaker.
“Carson Scholars are some of the best and brightest students in Lee County,” said Foundation Executive Director Marshall Bower in a prepared statement. “Earning excellent grades, supporting the community and making an impression on the principal are not easy tasks but these students did it.”
The Carson Scholars Fund has distributed approximately $800,000 worth of scholarships to students and some recipients have won one of these scholarships more than once.
For more information on the foundation, visit www.leeschoolfoundation.org.