Thomas Breen photo
DeBorah E. Davis Scholarship winner Anthony McKnight Bowles.
The Dwight Community Management Team awarded its annual book fund cash scholarship to an 18-year-old neighborhood local who has dedicated his young life so far to community service.
Management team chair Florita Gillespie awarded Anthony McKnight Bowles with this year’s DeBorah E. Davis Scholarship Tuesday night during the group’s regular monthly meeting in the Amistad Middle School gym on Edgewood Avenue.
Bowles, a University Place resident who graduates from Eli Whitney Technical High School later this month and has been accepted to attend Central Connecticut State University next fall, received one half of the $500 scholarship Tuesday. The team plans to present him with the second half of the cash winnings, designed to help him pay for books and other school materials at college, in January.
Bowles and management team chair Florita Gillespie.
“I would like to thank the Dwight central management team for being a great support system for me,” Bowles said.
He also thanked his parents, Kashonda Lawrence and Davian Bowles, and his grandmother, the late DeBorah Davis, for whom the scholarship is named and whom he credited for bringing him along to volunteering gigs with the Connecticut Food Bank, the Walk Against Hunger, Westville ArtWalk, and various Dwight management team events.
Davis “instilled in me great morals to be involved in my community and to help others,” Bowles said, “because not everyone is as fortunate as us. It’s always great to give back to those who are in need.”
The management team has presented the scholarship to college-bound locals each of the past seven years. The team’s leaders raise money for the fund by selling raffle tickets over the course of the year’s monthly management team meetings, with the raffle winners receiving smaller cash prizes.
“We are so proud of our winner,” Gillespie said as Bowles’s parents and neighbors stood and cheered. “Our winner has been involved with the Dwight management team since before I even became involved.”
Management team member Dottie Green read for the group an essay that Bowles had submitted in his application for the scholarship.
Dottie Green reads Bowles’s scholarship essay.
“I can start by saying from an early age I have been involved in my community and other civic organizations,” Green read from Bowles’s essay. “It was thanks my grandmother, who planted the seed and belief that I have an existence in life because of the impact of my community and my society.”
Bowles wrote that his grandmother’s volunteering prowess exposed him at an early age to how much a single individual can do to better his or her community simply by showing up and caring.
He has participated in and volunteered with Yale’s Urban Improvement Corps, the Wesleyan Center for Creative Youth, LULAC Head Start, the Red Cross campaign, LEAP, the Walk Against Hunger, and the Dwight management team.
Bowles’s parents Kashonda Lawrence and Davian Bowles (both standing).
“These things allowed me to have a lasting, valuable impact,” he wrote, “and they encouraged me to go to a four-ear university.
“I plan to live on the motto: If you can encourage, you can empower. And if you can empower, you can equip.”
Bowles said he plans on studying marketing and sports management at Central Connecticut State, with a minor in communications.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly identified Anthony’s last name as Knight. His correct name is Anthony McKnight Bowles.
Though later in the day, I am glad to see this article about Anthony Knight added to the news of the day. Singular attention to his accomplishments is well deserved. My ire was up this morning when it was not mentioned in earlier article. I guess this is the beauty of internet versus hard copy. Congrats to Anthony and his parents. Thank you