By Khalida Sarwari
Among this year’s crop of scholarship award recipients from the Saratoga Rotary Club are a violinist, newspaper editor-in-chief, an award-winning athlete and a Happy Hollow Zooteen.
Each year, the Rotary awards about $10,000 in scholarship money to four students from Saratoga’s high schools. That usually breaks down to two students each from Saratoga and two from Prospect high schools. This year’s winners from Saratoga High are Ariel Liu and Felicia Hung, who nabbed $2,500 each along with their counterparts at Prospect, Sarah Sawatzky and Allena Avila.
Ariel, 17, is editor-in-chief of the Saratoga Falcon, Saratoga High’s student newspaper, as well as president of the Interact and Spanish clubs. She is a member of her school’s varsity badminton team and serves as a head elections commissioner. Outside of school, Ariel is a youth group leader at her church and a volunteer at Community Legal Services East Palo Alto.
The Saratoga resident will make a move to UC-Berkeley this fall, where she plans to enter as a pre-business major.
“In the future, I hope to work at a consulting firm or possibly even start my own business,” she said.
Like Ariel, 17-year-old Felicia is involved in her school’s leadership class as well as the new student commission. She is a member of the Interact, Spanish and Common Roots clubs. She is also a violinist and secretary of the Saratoga High School orchestra.
She’ll be following her schoolmate to UC-Berkeley this fall. There, she plans to study molecular cell biology and public health with the intent of going to medical school and becoming a pediatrician.
“I will be using the scholarship money to hopefully do research and start working in hospitals,” she said.
Allena, 17, has been a member of Prospect High’s associated student body since her sophomore year and now serves as its executive student manager. In her spare time, she volunteers at Happy Hollow Park and Zoo as a “Zooteen,” working with both people and animals.
The San Jose resident plans to attend Cal Poly-San Luis Obispo this fall, where she’ll be majoring in English with the goal of working in education in the future.
“I am very grateful for this scholarship because the scholarship money will help my family pay the cost of attending a four-year university right after I graduate,” she said.
The soccer star of the bunch, 18-year-old Sarah has been named Goalie of the Year in the Santa Teresa Division of the Blossom Valley Athletic League the last three seasons and Freshman of the Year in 2012-13.
“Playing school soccer gave me the opportunity to work with a variety of people and learn what it means to work hard not only to improve yourself but to help your team,” she said.
Sarah is also a member of the varsity track and junior varsity field hockey teams. Athletics aside, she is a member of the drama club, has performed in the orchestra and volunteers as a counselor at Walden West every summer.
This fall, she will be attending Saint Mary’s College where she plans to study psychology.
All four girls are high school seniors.
