Cavaliers and FirstMerit Award 10 Scholarships to Northeast Ohio High School Seniors
Date Posted: April 29, 2009

Jill Brownfield of Akron was among 10 high school seniors from Northeast Ohio to receive a $2,000 scholarship from the Cavaliers/FirstMerit Scholarship Program. Brownfield is a senior at St. Vincent-St. Mary High School and plans to pursue a degree in physical therapy or premedicine at college.

For 18 years the partnership between the Cleveland Cavaliers and FirstMerit Bank has addressed the importance of higher education. Once again in 2009, 10 graduating high school seniors from Northeast Ohio received a scholarship through the Cavaliers/FirstMerit Bank Scholarship Program. An exciting change this year is that the Cavs and FirstMerit doubled the scholarship amount and each student received $2,000.
The recipients were honored at a pre-game banquet and recognized during a halftime ceremony at the Cavaliers vs. Washington Wizards game at Quicken Loans Arena on Wednesday, April 8th.

The criteria for awarding the Cavaliers/FirstMerit Bank Scholarships was based on applicants’ academic achievement, extracurricular activities and submission of a 500-word essay about the most important lesson they’ve learned in life thus far and how they plan to apply that lesson going forward. Also taken into consideration is their level of involvement in the community. Applicants also submitted a high school transcript, ACT and SAT scores and one letter of recommendation from a high school faculty member.

The Scholarship Application Committee reviewed all applications and essays. Twenty finalists from a pool of over 600 applicants were selected and interviewed by the committee, which includes members from FirstMerit, the Cleveland Cavaliers and educators.