Homestead Hills residents judge Silver Pen Scholarship Competition
Silver Pen 1st Place winner Hannah Ford and family.
Scholarships play a significant role when parents and students are trying to fund college tuition. Homestead Hills, a senior living community in Winston-Salem, is bringing their members and scholarship-seeking students together for the Silver Pen Scholarship Competition. Silver Pen is an essay-writing competition that has been hosted by Homestead Hills’ parent company, the Maxwell Group, Inc., since 2012 and has awarded over $184,000 in scholarships.
This year, students wrote an essay based around the fact that mistakes don’t define a person, instead they present unique opportunities to learn, grow and be better in the future. The students penned their essays on a personal experience where they learned from their shortcomings. “It was a great topic and really made us reflect on how we’ve grown and learned from things that are happening to us,” said one award winner.
Each entry is submitted and anonymously judged by a volunteer panel of members at Homestead Hills who enjoy writing. Judges assess the essays based on research, insight and perspective, theme development, inspirational quality, meaningful personal connect, creativity and clarity of ideas. “We enjoy reading the essays, they provide wonderful insight into the issues that today’s students are facing,” said one competition judge. The competition is a great way for both the members at Homestead Hills and students to connect through their different experiences.
On March 20, the Silver Pen winners and their families joined members at Homestead Hills for an award ceremony and dinner to celebrate their achievements. Executive Director of Homestead Hills, Jay Matthews, emceed the evening and began by welcoming the winners, their families and members to the community for the evening. Judge Barbara Conley received a recognition speech and award presented by Harry Melman for being involved in the competition since its inception and her peers awarded her with a silver pen and flower bouquet.
Throughout the night, students read their entries to the attendees and were awarded their scholarship, official award certificate and commemorative engraved silver pen for placing in the competition. This year, $3,750 in scholarships were awarded for the top four entries, who all coincidentally came from the same high school, Wesleyan Christian Academy.
Congratulations to 4th place winner – Madeline Cashion, 3rd place winner – Reese McCormick, 2nd place winner – Savannah Cribbs, and 1st place winner – Hannah Ford.
Creating partnerships between members and students isn’t a new occurrence at this upscale senior living community. They were recently awarded their 5th Best of the Best Award, this year in the category in Family and Resident Engagement, by senior living industry leader Argentum. Their award-winning J.O.Y. Program (Joining Older and Younger), brings together seniors at Homestead Hills and students, pre-school through college-aged, together for long-term cooperative partnerships.
To learn more about the Silver Pen Competition, visit www.silverpen-slc.com .Homestead Hills, is an all-inclusive luxury retirement community with independent living, assisted living, memory care, skilled nursing and rehab services. The community’s care-free lifestyle helps members live longer, healthier, happier lives. For more information about Homestead Hills visit https://Homestead-Hills.com.
