A little bit about a lot of things:

• There are all kinds of offers of free money in our world....I get four or five on the average day via email, usually from friends I don’t know telling me that I have won a lottery I didn’t enter or that I have qualified to help them disburse a large inheritance or some such thing from Nigeria....silly me, I keep hitting the “delete” key instead of accepting those promises of untold wealth!!!

In a few rare cases, however, the offer of “free money” is very real – such as the scholarship support offered to our young adults in Gustine and Newman as a reward for their hard work in school and for their college aspirations.

Rarely in life does one find organizations devoted to giving money away for the benefit of others, but that is exactly what GUSTO and TOSCA, our local scholarship organizations do.

GUSTO will host its 10th annual scholarship awards banquet Monday evening at Gustine High; TOSCA will present its 2008 scholarships later in May to deserving students from the Newman-Crows Landing district.

These wonderful organizations, led by dedicated community members who volunteer their time and made possible by the generous supporters whose contributions make the scholarships a reality, are nothing short of amazing.

Free money for college.....to the tune of more than $100,000 in TOSCA and $40,000 in GUSTO, this year alone.

How many young adults have that kind of opportunity, courtesy of their own communities?

Of course, it’s not like GUSTO and TOSCA simply hand out money left and right.

Students must qualify for the scholarships by meeting academic standards, either in high school or through their college years – and they must also properly and completely fill out the applications in timely fashion.

I believe that the scholarship organizations send a wonderfully positive message to students that if they do their part the community will do its part to help them reach for their college dreams.

It is not a free ride, nor should it be.

Some of the students receiving scholarships this year would have been in second grade when GUSTO was founded; Orestimba High seniors this year wouldn’t even have been in school when TOSCA presented its first awards.

Through those years, GUSTO and TOSCA have helped provide one of life’s most valuable gifts – opportunity – and that scholarship support should never be taken for granted, viewed as an entitlement or go unappreciated.

College costs are daunting, and for some students even a matter of a few hundred dollars can mean the difference between being able to buy books.....or not quite being able to bridge the affordability gap.

Few times in life will young adults be in a situation where somebody wants to give them money to help themselves.

We encourage scholarship recipients to use that money to the fullest, to remember the importance of saying thank you and to in time “pay it forward” by supporting the organizations which supported them.

Free money.

You won’t see that every day.

• When the calendar flips over to May, things kick into high gear in our communities and around our offices.

The arrival of May means that the final, hectic weeks of the school year have arrived. From now until school graduations, the calendar is full with a stream of awards programs, banquets and special activities.

We stay busy covering as many of those events as possible, and will also produce our spring “mass-mailer” and special graduation section in the coming weeks.

Despite the hectic pace, this is also one of the most special times of the year....perhaps because so many of the activities are geared to celebrating the accomplishments of students, whether simply recognizing somebody for perfect attendance or honoring a Spring Fair grand champion or being on hand while graduating seniors receive the diploma that sends them out into the real world.

• The search for a new varsity football coach at Gustine High School came to a conclusion last week when the school board approved hiring local graduate and Gustine Middle School assistant principal Manuel Bettencourt as head coach of the Redskins.

The local ties don’t end there, as GHS graduate Johnathan Gerhart was hired on as an assistant coach.

Readers will learn more about the decision to hire Bettencourt and his goals for the program in next week’s “mass-mailer” edition.

Bettencourt will step into a challenging situation at best following two very difficult years for the football program at GHS.

We wish him the best in rebuilding a program that has fallen on tough times, and bringing the Redskins back to success on the gridiron.

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