The Higher Education Mentoring Initiative held its annual scholarship dinner Dec. 18 and honored dozens of foster children with scholarships to aid in their academic success.
Job and Family Services Director Moira Weir’s idea to start a mentoring organization to help foster children succeed in the high school classroom and make a transition to some form of higher learning has blossomed in ten short years. HEMI awarded tens of thousands of dollars in scholarships to children who are participating in higher education or training from as far east as New York and as far west as Hawaii. Most are right here in the Tristate area.
Included in the scholarship winners were Isabel Slonnegar and Zoe Huesman, winners of the Moira Weir Scholarship, named for Weir, who helped start HEMI by pulling a coalition together that now includes the Hamilton County Board of County Commissioners, Hamilton County Department of Job and Family Services, the University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati State Technical and Community College, Great Oaks Career Campuses, OhioMeansJobs and Mount St. Joseph University.
