The Donald A. Strauss Public Service Scholarship Foundation said UC Merced student Yuriana Aguilar was awarded a $10,000 public-service scholarship for her senior year.
Aguilar, from Fresno, said she discovered the scholarship when looking for ways to pay for college.
Her project will consist of educating young members of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Merced County about healthy lifestyle habits to reduce childhood obesity and other diseases.
She will work with Jaynee Galloway, fitness coordinator at UC Merced's Recreation and Athletics department. Galloway will help with physical activities to teach youngsters how to stay physically active from childhood.
Aguilar said she'll also be working with Kristin Hlubik, the Health Promotion coordinator at UC Merced's Health Services Department. Hlubik will help with educating children about how to eat a healthy diet.
With Tony Slaton, executive director of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Merced County, the group will organize bimonthly programs that focus on creating healthy lifestyle habits in children. "Research has shown that if you instill in children certain habits, they are likely to carry those into their adult life. That's why we are investing in these children to create a new generation of healthy individuals," said Aguilar.
Aguilar said she plans to use the scholarship funds to buy equipment, food and rewards for youngsters in the program. At the bimonthly meetings, the children will learn how to cook simple healthy meals, exercise in a way that is fun and enjoy the benefits of living a healthy lifestyle.
Aguilar also said she was amazed at the opportunity and began to work on the scholarship a year in advance. "Merced is a small, close-knit community in which common people just like me can make a difference -- and I was and am anxious to be useful," said Aguilar. "I am thankful to the Strauss Foundation for this award."
The Strauss scholarships fund as many as 15 public-service projects that students have proposed and will carry out during their senior year. They were established as a memorial to the late Don Strauss of Newport Beach.
Strauss demonstrated a lifelong commitment to public service and education, reflected by his serving 10 years on the Newport-Mesa Unified School District Board, and 12 years on the Newport Beach City Council, including one as mayor, the foundation said in a news release.
He also founded summer internships in Washington, D.C., for students at Cornell University, Stanford University, the University of Rhode Island, the California Institute of Technology and Harvey Mudd College, and he endowed scholarships at Stanford, UC Irvine and Harvey Mudd. He died in 1995 at the age of 79.
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