Update on Shawn Riley JSN Recipient 2007

This was a letter we received from Shawn himself:

Dear Steve and Family,

First off, thank you for your generous contributions and efforts to carry out such a great cause. With the current economic conditions, public education in California has taken a devastating blow as money has become scarce on all school campuses. This has resulted in increased student fees and less money for the universities to distribute as financial aid. With that in mind, you should be very proud of your services and what this has meant for me and fellow scholarship recipients.

Since fall of 2007, I’ve been attending the University of California, Santa Cruz. I’ve decided to major in politics and minor in education. Thus far, my cumulative GPA is 3.76 – so somewhere right around the B+/A- range. I can say with no hesitation that I absolutely love it up here and receiving a liberal arts education from UC Santa Cruz has been an invaluable experience for me.

I currently have two jobs: student assistant at the university’s Special Collections and Archives and as the director of the university’s Student Volunteer Center. Unfortunately, I had to take a break from working in the archives simply because I’ve been so busy with everything else. On top of taking 19 units (12 units is considered full-time), work usually results in about 20-25 hours per week. To say the least, I’ve been very busy – yet all the things I do I very much enjoy so there’s nothing to complain about.

My job as director of the Student Volunteer Center (SVC) is absolutely great. SVC is the university’s resource for volunteer opportunities and internships. We have about 5 annual events that we put on each year, including an Alternative Spring Break trip to New Orleans to help out with the on-going Katrina relief. This will be my second year going, but this time I have the pleasure (or sometimes displeasure) of organizing the program. There will be twenty of us heading down to the Big Easy from March 21^st-29^th – the duration of our spring break. We will be rebuilding homes and restoring them to near original condition, most likely doing a lot of painting, sanding, floating and dry walling.

Also, this year I’ve been serving as the Student Union Assembly representative on the Committee on Educational Policy. This committee oversees all aspects of undergraduate education at UC Santa Cruz. We are currently drafting legislation for new general education requirements. I'm proud to say that I was able to include a service-learning requirement within the legislation. This could potentially result in thousands of students getting involved and giving back to our local community. The legislation is being voted on this Friday, March 6th. If it passes then I will be extremely happy.

I truly appreciate all that you do. If there’s any way I can help out, please let me know. Thanks!

As you can see Shawn has been extremely busy making the most of his college days. We are sure we selected the kind of young man we truly want honoring Joey's memory. Shawn has also along his long list of achievements has received the following awards while in college.

Collegiate Awards

Outstanding Student Employee Performance Award, May 2008

Bonner Scholars Program, 2008-2009: Awarded to students who have pledged a distinguished amount of time to work in the non-profit sector providing direct services to human needs.

We all would like to extend the JSN Foundation love to Shawn & him mother as he continues his education to strive for a better world! With that Shawn will be receiving a monetary award from the JSN Foundation for continuing on a path to success. Keep up the great work, Shawn!