Rewarded for community service
Cane Bay High School senior Ogugua Nwaezeigwe received the R.D. Bennett Community Service Scholarship for her work promoting STEM education to young women. She was joined at the award ceremony by (left to right) Rita Worthy, Patrice Simmons and Eleanor Gillins of Berkeley Electric Cooperative.
Photo by Brian Troutman
Ogugua Nwaezeigwe of Summerville is the recipient of the 2018 R.D. Bennett Community Service Scholarship presented by The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Inc., the trade association for South Carolina’s independent, not-for-profit electric cooperatives. The $5,000 college scholarship is presented to a student who completes a community service project that best exemplifies the cooperative principle of “concern for community.”
Nwaezeigwe, 17, was among 10 high school students from across the state who completed projects this summer. In mid-August, a panel of judges selected her project, “The STEMinists Program,” as the winner. Nwaezeigwe created a program to instill excitement in young women who are interested in STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and math). She also created a STEM workshop for young women in the fourth through eighth grades and raised nearly $5,000 to fund it.
“I believe that The STEMinists Program has created a fire burning underneath the hearthstones of curiosity that has sparked a revolution in the minds and community of our young girls,” Nwaezeigwe says. “The conversation that this program has started—I would never have imagined when I first thought of the idea. Being a woman is not a disadvantage but something to be celebrated in the STEM field.”
Nwaezeigwe completed her project after participating in the annual Washington Youth Tour program, which sends rising high school seniors to the nation’s capital for a week of learning about cooperatives and government. She and seven other students represented Berkeley Electric Cooperative.
Nwaezeigwe, a senior at Cane Bay High School in Summerville, is the daughter of Patrick and Rosy Nwaezeigwe.
The R.D. Bennett Community Service Scholarship is named for Robert D. Bennett, the first general manager and executive vice president of The Electric Cooperatives of South Carolina, Inc. Bennett, who led the state association from 1950 until his retirement in 1980, strongly believed that electric cooperatives should support their local communities—providing a better quality of life for their members. His spirit of community service is reflected in this scholarship opportunity.