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Community Service Award for NHS students return after years of dormancy

Date: 3/28/2023

NORTHAMPTON — The Northampton Kiwanis Club recently announced the return of a significant community service award for Northampton High School students.

According to a release sent to Reminder Publishing, the award — which is worth $500 in cash — will go to a graduating senior who has performed “outstanding community service.”

It is not based on academic performance or the student’s post-graduation plans, but the award will consider the student’s financial hardship or other special circumstances, according to the release, and this is the first time the award has been facilitated in years.

“It’s important to understand that sometimes a family’s financial situation makes it hard for a student to volunteer,” says Mollie Hartford, a member of the Kiwanis Club’s board of directors. “If the student has an after-school job to help support their family, they simply don’t have as many hours in the day to volunteer as a student without those responsibilities might have. We want to make sure we take that into consideration when choosing the recipient.”

Students interested in applying for the award can do so by picking one up at the NHS guidance office. According to Hartford, the application asks students to describe their community service activities inside and outside of school. Students are also encouraged to submit additional materials that showcase their work. “This isn’t about which student writes the best essay,” says Hartford. “It’s about their passion and commitment to their community.”

Background

The Kiwanis Northampton Donald Tepper Award was established in 1993 and was awarded to one student each year who was “deserving of recognition and has shown perseverance.”

Honoring community service, the award was created to honor longtime Kiwanis Club member and Northampton businessman and musician Donald Tepper Sr., who was involved in myriad community activities and was a recipient of the Kiwanis Man of the Year Award in 1991, which was just a year before he passed.

For years, the community service award in Tepper’s name, as well as the fund associated with it, have laid dormant in the school district’s account until Veronica Douglas, an educator support professional and dual enrollment scholarship coordinator at NHS, discovered the fund and reached out to the family of Tepper Sr. and the members of the Northampton Kiwanis Club.

Tepper’s youngest daughter, Kathy Nowlan, was on board with re-surfacing this award for a graduating senior.

“My [siblings] and I really have no recollection of the club establishing this scholarship,” said Nowlan, a retired educator. “But my family feels committed to positive work by students in the community. It is necessary to teach our next generations the importance of volunteer and community service, if not at home, then at school.”

The award’s present and future

In a statement to Reminder Publishing, Hartford said that the Kiwanis Club felt it was important to reinstate the award to honor the family of Tepper, and reward all the “wonderful community service” spearheaded by Northampton students each year.

“The Kiwanis Club gets to see first-hand what the Northampton Key Club students do, and we wanted to make sure that all students got the chance to be recognized for their hard work and their impact on the entire community,” she said.

Beyond this year, the Kiwanis Club also hopes to expand the award in the future to support non-traditional students, including students in lower grades, as well as those at the HEC Academy — which is a public day special education program for youth grades 9-12.

In the meantime, applications for the community service award are due March 31 at the guidance office at NHS. Interested students should reach out to Douglas at vdouglas@northampton-k12.us or visit the guidance office. Community members interested in supporting the continued funding of this award are encouraged to reach out to the Northampton Kiwanis Club at northamptonkiwanis.org.