PHILIPSBURG, Sint Maarten – Sint Maarten Lions Club awarded four cycle 2 – group 8 primary schools students for the Student Excellent Award(SEA) project for 2018-2019.
This project started in 2009, with the focus to award students who made a tremendous improvement in their social skills, academics, behavior and became more community minded during the last year in the primary school. All schools were required to select one student, who met the requirements of the SEA project and draft a letter indicating why this student deserved the Student Excellent Award.
This project is very important to the Sint Maarten Lions Club as we felt it placed the youngsters in the spotlight as we recognized them for their leadership skills and social achievement at home, school, church, sports or any other organization in the community.
In the past, all the students selected from the 17 primary schools received a monetary voucher from the club, which they were then able to use for any after school activity program, sport or other activity program of their choice, or to purchase a gift of their choice.
In 2017 the club made a change in SEA project with a decision to grant 4 students the opportunity to attend a summer camp, of which two would travel to an international summer camp and two students would participate in a local summer camp on the island. The objective of the international summer camp experience was to give the students a once in a lifetime opportunity that would stay with them for the rest of their lives. The students selected to attend the summer camps would have the opportunity to meet with other youth of their age group, do activities together, learn from each other, grow socially, emotionally, and gain experience in many other aspects of life.
The SEA committee then selected two students, a male student from Prince William Alexander School and a female student of M.G. De Weever primary school, who then accompanied by a Lion member travelled to Missouri, to attend the Camp Kanakuk with the theme of the year “God first others second and yourself third. They had a fabulous time.
This year two male students, D’Andre Daniel from Sr. Borgia Primary School and Ray Thomas from the Browlia F. Maillard campus will travel with their Lion Chaperone to Toronto, Canada to attend Camp Kearney where they will participate in the “Adventure in the Outdoors” from July 11-18, 2019.
The other two students, a female student Geilyssa Simmon from St. Joseph Primary School and a male student Randy Ortiz from Ruby Labega School will participate in the No Kidding with Our Kids Foundation, “Artistic Inspiration Summer Camp” from July 9 – 19, 2019. The Sint. Maarten Lion Club wishes all awardees a great, fantastic Summer Camp experience and advices them to make everlasting memories.
From August 2019, the Sint Maarten Lions club will once again approach all primary schools with the SEA project, asking them to support and fully embrace this project in the coming school year. Focusing on their new group 8 students by monitoring their growth and development during the school year will make it easy to select a student for the prestigious Student Excellent Award at the end of the 2019-2020 school year. On behalf of Lion Carmen Lake, the past president of the Sint Maarten Lions Club and the Youth and Education Committee, we take this opportunity to thank this year participating schools and the parents of the selected students for their support of the SEA project.
Minister of Education, Youth Affairs & Culture Mr. Wycliffe Smith(left) poses with the winning students and Past Lion President Carmen Lake(right)
