Scholarship Current Students Applicant review page
In 2025, Keep Pennsylvania Beautiful will award two $1,000 merit based scholarships: one to a current YA student and one to an alum. Reviwers, please review the scoring rubric then select an applicant by clicking on the ID number on the left below. Read the application then enter a score for the three short essay questions. An optional box for comments is at the end. Thank you for your help!
For any questions or problems with the form, please contact Rob Dubas at rdubas@keeppabeautiful.org for questions on the scholarship or Young Ambassador Program, please contact Kylie McCutcheon at kmccutcheon@keeppabeautiful.org.
Click to view the scoring rubric.My experience as a Young Ambassador has completely changed my understanding of stewardship and civics. Before becoming an ambassador, I believed stewardship to be about making plans and executing those plans with the resources I have available. During my time as a Young Ambassador, that view has completely changed. I have be able to learn that stewardship is more than just simple planning, but truly taking the time to make an effective plan that others can easily follow and that will make a positive impact on the environment around me. Stewardship is about really caring for the places you are trying to improve and making a committement to the betterment of the environment around me. I have come to understand that inspiring others, long-term committment, and ensuring the places around me are preserved for generations to come is true stewardship.
Before my times as a Young Ambassador, I believed civics to be a duty to my city. This belief has changed over these past months to mean something greater than just a duty for me. Civics is about being a participant in my community, but also about taking the lead and educating my community on important issues. It is more than just a duty, it is a responsibility. Civics mean connecting and working with local organizations to fulfill my responsibilites as a citizen in my community. Civic responsibilty is not individual. It is a collective responsibilty of the community to work together in a group effort to make change possible. No steward or civic act is small. I used to believe my actions had to be big to make change, but my experience as aYoung Ambassador has helped me see that small acts of service greatly impact my community in positive ways.
I have contributed to my community in many ways during my time as a Young Ambassador. In the beginning of my ambassadorship, I had no idea what I was getting into. I knew I would be helping my community, but I never expected to contribute as much as I have now to my community. Since becoming a young ambassador, I have learned new things about my community including how to be more locally involved, and how to help others positively impact their own communities. One way I have contributed to my community is by spreading awarness on issues I am passionate about. I have been able to expand others' knowledge on the importance of protecting the environment. I have spread awarness on how serious of a problem littering is and how protecting our streams is extremely important through presentations, word of mouth, and flyers. I have also been very active in the Perkiomen Watershed. I helped organize sites for the annual cleanup as well as particpate in it. I have spread word of local cleanup events, and I was able to gather many volunteers to help in the cleanup process. I have worked to make public places someplace everyone can enjoy through road side cleanups and trail restorations. Lastly, I have been collaborating with leaders from the Perkiomen Watershed conservetory to expand their work and methods into the Sckyulkill River Watershed in order to make Philadelphia and urban areas as clean and safe as suburban communities. Since becoming a Young Ambassador, I have made my community more aware, cleaner, and beautiful.
My experience as a Young Ambassador has allowed me to grow into the best version of myself. I have learned I can be a strong leader. Because I am an Eagle Scout, I have always known I am a leader, but being an ambassador has made me realize my voice and actions make a big difference in my community. Through my education event as well as organizing and leading a cleanup event, I learned that I am a strong leader that my community can rely on. Another important thing I learned about myself due to being a Young Ambassador is that I am extremely resilient and adaptable. My original plan for my cleanup event did not work out the way I expected, but I was able to adapt and stay focused on the goal of cleaning up my community. I was able to change locations, get volunteers to help, and deal with rainy and muddy conditions on the day of my cleanup. I did not let these challenges deter me from my goal, and I never gave up on educating people and creating a cleaner environment. The last thing I learned about myself because of my experiences as a Young Ambassador is that the environment is something I truly care about. I have always loved the outdoors, but my experience as a young ambassador has helped me learn about problems in the environment and it has inspired me to pursue a career where I can create positive change. This experience has helped me decide what I want to do in the future. With the new skills I have learned throughout my time as a Young Ambassador, I can truly make an impact on the world around me by caring about the environment and creating sustainable solutions to everyday problems.
