For many high school students it would be really hard to pay for college or even think about college without there being scholarships. Scholarships are a grant or payment made to support a student’s education, awarded on the basis of academic or other achievements. Many local communities now are giving away scholarships to high school students that apply for their scholarship program; Communities like Mission Viejo, Ladera Ranch, San Clemente and many more.

For example, Coral Thrift shop located in San Clemente hands out $2,000 scholarships to worthy high school applicants. Sandy Murray, representative of Coral Thrift Shop said that, “All high school seniors have to do is go to their guidance counselor and apply for their scholarship.Then the thrift shop looks at the senior’s grades, family life, community service hours, and goals that they would like to achieve in the near future. We then choose a handful of the applicants and give them the scholarship during their senior award ceremony at the end of May.”

Coral Thrift shop also holds a special luncheon sometime around the second week of June for the applicants that they have chosen.

Murray also added that, “ We have received about twenty-nine applications, from various high schools, eight are from SJHHS. We hand out approximately twenty scholarships. Our main goal is to be able to send as many high school seniors off to college as we can.”

The thrift shop has been serving their community for about 49 years and will soon be holding their 50th anniversary next year. They have volunteers between the ages of 50 and 90 years old. The shop is open from Mondays through Saturdays from 11:00 to 4:00, and are open to any kind of donations; such as clothes, jewelry, furniture, and much more.