Encourage your high school students and Aspiring Educators to apply for these scholarships.
Through the generosity of Missouri NEA's past leaders and the Educators Rising Program, MNEA is able to offer the following scholarship opportunities for high school seniors and college students majoring in education. Share the information with your students, children, grandchildren, and college students aspiring to become educators.
Gilbert Balderrama Minority Scholarship
Application Due Date: Jan. 31
Amount: $500
Eligibility: High school senior and person of color or Indigenous peoples
The Gilbert Balderrama Minority Scholarship was created in memory of one of Missouri NEA's UniServ Directors and education activists. For more than 20 years, Gilbert Balderrama served MNEA and its members as a UniServ director. Gilbert received numerous degrees and certifications and strongly believed in furthering one's knowledge through education.
Cochran Scholarship
Application Due Date: Jan. 31
Amount: $500
Eligibility: Member of Aspiring Educators
Former Missouri NEA Executive Director Peggy Cochran and her late husband Paul were both teachers. Both come from families of teachers. Two of their children are teachers in the St. Louis area. They believe that teaching is the most rewarding career anyone can choose.
To encourage people to become teachers, they created a $500 scholarship in support of one of these individuals each year. Applicants must currently be in their freshman, sophomore, or junior year at a Missouri college or university.
Karlovetz-Favero Scholarship
Application Due Date: Jan. 31
Amount: $1,000
Eligibility: Member of Aspiring Educators
Martha Karlovetz, past President of MNEA and MNEA-Retired, has been an Association Activist at the local, state, and national levels since MNEA was established in 1973. Her daughter, Linda Favero, was a building representative and an MNEA-RA delegate. Linda's career as an educator was cut short after losing the battle with a brain tumor.
In Linda's memory, Martha authored the book The Classroom is Bare...the Teacher's Not There!, which was inspired by a poem that one of Linda's second-graders wrote in memory of her beloved teacher.
Jack Kinnaman Scholarship
Application Due Date: April 15, opens in December
Amount: $1,000-3,500
Eligibility: Member of Aspiring Educators
The NEA-Retired Jack Kinnaman Scholarship Fund was established in honor of Jack Kinnaman, the then-serving NEA-Retired Vice President. His surviving family members wished to establish a scholarship program in his memory; thus, beginning a much-needed assistance activity for worthy aspiring educators.
In the first year of the program in 2002, a scholarship of $1,000 was awarded to one recipient. As Retired members have continued to generously donate, the amount has greatly increased to five scholarships of $3,500 each. To be considered for this award, aspiring educators must submit an application and several letters of recommendation. The NEA-Retired Intergenerational Committee selects the winners, who are announced at the NEA-Retired Annual meeting.
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