FORT GREGG-ADAMS, Va. – Three Hill AFB youth, Sean Callis, Cindy D. Kunzler and William P Leonard were each awarded a $2,000 Fisher House Foundation scholarship for the 2023-2024 academic year.
For the 23rd straight year, Fisher House Foundation’s Scholarships for Military Children program has awarded deserving children of U.S. service members scholarship grants, providing an early leg up in funding their higher education dreams.
Fisher House created the program in 2001 in partnership with the Defense Commissary Agency to recognize the contributions of military families to the readiness of the fighting force and to celebrate the commissaries’ role in enhancing the military’s quality of life.
Fisher House has continually improved the application process to support the increasing number of students applying each year, according to Marshall Banks, Fisher House Foundation’s director of community relations.
“The application process for the 2023-2024 Scholarships for Military Children program went extremely well,” he said. “We received 4,443 applications from 224 commissaries. That’s a 21-percent increase in applicants from last year.” He added that, in total, Fisher House has provided $22,126,500 in scholarships over the last 23 years.
Scholarship applicants submit their official transcript indicating a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 or above on a 4.0 scale for high school applicants or indicating a cumulative minimum GPA of 2.5 or above on a 4.0 scale for students already enrolled in college; and an essay of 500 words or less, no longer than two pages.
All rules and requirements for the program, as well as links to frequently asked questions are available at the Scholarships for Military Children website, as is the full list of this year’s winners.
“The window to apply for the 2024-2025 Fisher House Scholarships should open in December and close sometime in February, but the exact dates have not been set yet,” said Todd Heasley, DeCA’s scholarships program liaison. “Be sure to check the scholarship page in December for the date of the opening, as well as the new essay question for the year.”
(75th Air Base Wing Public Affairs contributed to this story.)