The middle of June is a special time around the Adolescence Division at Children’s Aid. Our high school seniors are graduating, and nearly 90 percent of them have been accepted to at least one college or university.

A few dozen have scaled even greater heights by winning scholarships through their participation in Children’s Aid programs. We celebrate their amazing accomplishments each year around this time.

Scholarship week tips off with the annual Stern Scholarship Luncheon. This year, nine young people will start college in the fall with generous assistance from the Stern family.

Those nine joined two dozen other recent graduates for the 2017 Scholarship Awards Ceremony—a full representation of all the young men and women who won Children’s Aid-sponsored scholarships. In addition to the Stern family’s series of scholarships, we are incredibly thankful to the following organizations and families for their commitment to higher education and the futures of promising scholars: the Garden of Dreams Foundation (whose four-year renewable Inspire Scholarships are worth $40,000 each); Peter and Susan Friedes; David Poritzky and his daughter, Sophie, in memoriam for her mother, Audrey Miller Poritzky; the Lucille Werlinich Scholarship; Tom Dyja and Suzanne Gluck; the family of Richard R. Dieterle; and the Irving Zarember estate.

Our president and CEO, Phoebe Boyer, after thanking everyone who had a hand in the past and future success of these young people, reminded everyone how important their success was to our mission of helping children, youth, and family every step of the way. “You’re living proof that what we do matters,” she said. “Whether you know it or not, you are feeding our fire—encouraging us to see the promise in all the children, youth, and families we work with. The example you set, the goals you achieve, are what make us so eager to come to work every day. I think I speak for all of Children’s Aid when I say we can’t thank you enough.”