ELKO — Elko Federal Credit Union is providing a total of $10,000 in scholarship money to 2024 high school graduates within EFCU’s area of financial coverage.
Todd Sorenson, president and CEO of the credit union, said the scholarship program has existed for about six years.
“Historically, we’ve done six per year,” he said. “We’ve expanded that to 10.”
A scholarship committee reviews the applicants’ submissions to figure out which ones best represent EFCU.
Sarah Goicoechea, EFCU’s senior marketing and community relations coordinator, said she handles the scholarship process by “taking applications and making sure everything’s ready for our scholarship committee to be able to review and select the scholarships.”
She also said she manages her workload by “making sure we have our information and our deadlines met and that we’re moving through the process efficiently.”
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“It’s open to our entire field of membership, and that’s really anybody along the northern counties of Interstate 80. But our focus has, in the past, primarily been Elko and Spring Creek,” Sorenson said.
The scholarship ensures Elko high school seniors and graduates feel supported in the goals they want to accomplish in the next step of their lives, Sorenson said. Thus, it funds education choices of all sorts and is not only aimed at students with university aspirations.
“One of the things that was important to us is that it is open to anything post-high school graduation. So whether that be trades, community college, universities, it’s really a wide gamut,” he said.
“You want to go to a journeyman electrician program or a welding program? Submit your application,” Sorenson said.
“I think it’ll be interesting to watch where they take their post-high school education,” he noted. “We want to support you in the cost of what you want to do. But we also want to share your successes as a member of our community.”
EFCU supports Elko’s youth and their education in several ways, Sorenson said.
“You may see some of our snippets on financial Fridays on the radio or on our website. We give tips. March happens to be all about building credit or enhancing your credit to get better deals on loans. April is actually Financial Literacy Month, and we have a couple of fun activities planned with both high schools in Elko and Spring Creek on some financial literacy programs with the students there,” he said.
“We really look forward to participating in things like that, to give these students a view of money and what the reality of some of these costs and expenses are,” Sorenson said.
The online application is available at elkofcu.org/scholarships. Documents can be emailed to scholarships@elkofcu.org. The deadline is April 12.