BEMIDJI AREA FRIENDS OF CONCORDIA LANGUAGE VILLAGES GRANTS 100TH SCHOLARSHIP

Saturday, March 28, the Bemidji Area Friends of Concordia Language Villages awarded 11 one-week scholarships to fourth and fifth graders from Bemidji, Blackduck, Deer River, Laporte, Puposky Red Lake, Solway, and Tenstrike. The annual essay contest has been sponsored and coordinated for the past 12 years by the Bemidji Area Friends of Concordia Language Villages, a volunteer group building connections between Concordia Language Villages and the community of Bemidji. Students who participate in the essay contest select a language taught at Concordia Language Villages and write about how they can learn and grow from the study of the language and culture they selected.

The funding for the scholarships came from the generous support of a number of local donors including Paul Bunyan Communications; North Country Snowmobile Club; the Bemidji Rotary Club; First National Bank of Bemidji; Affinity Plus Credit Union; Naylor Heating and Refrigeration; Super 8, Bemidji; Sanford Health; JP Egelhof Investigations, LLC; Herington Shoes; Hampton Inn & Suites, Bemidji; Bernick's; Coca Cola Bottling Company of Bemidji; Dondelinger GM; Wild Hare Bistro & Coffeehouse and numerous individual donors. The Bemidji Area Friends of Concordia Language Villages also raised additional funds by hosting a Scholarship Benefit Dinner in October with a Italian banquet and a presentation by Eric Dregni, author of several books including Never Trust a Thin Cook and Other Lessons from Italy's Culinary Capital and dean of Lago del Bosco, the Italian Language Village, at El Lago del Bosque, the Spanish Language Village. This annual benefit dinner is open to the public. Next fall the group plans to host the benefit dinner with an authentic Chinese meal.

The 2015 essay contest winners are:

• Cody Lyle, 5th grader at JW Smith Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the German Language Village.

• Holly Vind, 4th grader at Horace May Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Norwegian Language Village.

• Aireaana Gavere, 4th grader at Northern Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Spanish Language Village.

• Sara Hardy, 5th grader at King Elementary, Deer River, will attend the Japanese Language Village.

• Nick Gonzales, 4th grader at Lincoln Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Spanish Language Village.

• Amaya Pemberton, 4th grader at Red Lake Elementary, Red Lake, will attend the Chinese Language Village.

• Monica Johnson, 5th grader at Northome School, Northome, will attend the Norwegian Language Village.

• Alexa Zylka, 5th grader at Horace May Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Danish Language Village.

• Jessica Maxwell, 4th grader at Northern Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the German Language Village.

• Samantha Pereira, 4th grader at Solway Elementary, Solway, will attend the Portuguese Language Village.

• Ella Baumgartner, 4th grader at Northern Elementary, Bemidji, will attend the Spanish Langauge Village.

The mission of Concordia Language Villages is to prepare young people for responsible citizenship in our global community. It has been a model of innovative language and culture immersion programs and offers one-, two- and four-week summer programs in 15 languages: Arabic, Chinese, Danish, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish and Swedish. Concordia Language Villages, a program of Concordia College, was established in 1961, and serves more than 4,000 people, of all ages and from all 50 states and many other countries during a summer. Concordia Language Villages also offers local day camps and school year programs for school groups, adults and families. For more information, please call (800) 222-4750 or visit ConcordiaLanguageVillages.org.

List of winners, in order on accompanying photo