Hamden High Grad Creates Scholarship For Her Classmates

The Hamden High School class of 2020 didn’t get a prom or a last few months of high school spent celebrating with friends. But thanks to the work of one graduate, ​’20 grads will walk away with a scholarship to help them through their next life step.

Mareshah White, who just graduated with the class of 2020, said she was thinking about her classmates on Mother’s Day when an idea occurred to her. She had gotten so much from her peers, and she was watching them graduate without any of the traditional hallmarks of the end of senior year, she said. “I said, ‘Maybe there’s a way I could kind of give back to my class.’”

They couldn’t get a prom or a carefree senior spring. But maybe they could get some financial support as they embark on college careers.

So White decided that she wanted to create a scholarship fund for her fellow graduating seniors to put towards their future endeavors.

She went first to Principal Nadine Gannon and then to the guidance department, and started reaching out to organizations in the area that could sponsor the fund. A few months later, the scholarship was up and running, and got its first donation: $15,000 from AT&T.

White partnered with the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven to create the scholarship. The foundation holds the funds, and she and Hamden High Coordinator of Counseling and Career Pathways Dan Cocchiola are helping administer them.

White said that at the very least, she would like to give scholarships to 150 graduating seniors. But she said she hopes to get enough donations to be able to provide a scholarship to all 396 graduating seniors.

White said she is still collecting applications. So far, 72 students have applied. The scholarship will be open to students pursuing four-year college, two-year colleges or trade schools, or the military, and can be used for whatever students need it for.

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