Each spring, in memory of its co-founder, Jeanette Cartwright, H.O.P.E. awards academic scholarships to deserving high school seniors. The award is based on financial need and a history of cancer in the student’s immediate family. For those interested in applying, please download 2025 Jeanette Cartwright Scholarship.
The successful candidate must have someone within his or her immediate household with cancer, must demonstrate a financial need, and be accepted into a college or trade school. Scholarship winners must then prove completion of one year of the college or trade school of their choice.
Since 1995, H.O.P.E. has awarded over $80,000 worth of scholarships to high school seniors pursing a post- secondary education. Candidates not only demonstrate exemplary academic and extracurricular talent, but continue to do so through the lingering effects of their families’ cancer journey.
2025 Jeanette Cartwright Memorial Scholarship
Requirements?
Just download application, fill out and return to office.
Time frame to apply?
Must be post marked by March 15th.
Are awards limited to certain schools?
No
Eligibility?
Consideration for this scholarship shall be given to any high school senior that has an immediate family member diagnosed with cancer or one who has recently lost a family member to cancer.
HOPE’s Scholarship Winners Every year our scholarship committee has its work cut out for them. The majority of the senior class applicants have outstanding qualifications. Yet somehow the committee agrees on the four who have that something extra. This year’s winners have that and more. All have experienced cancer in their immediate families and were impacted at difficult times in their young lives; one winner herself was the cancer patient. Despite this, or possibly because of this, these four young people persevered and made their marks in the classroom, in student government, on the athletic fields, and in a wealth of community endeavors. As we’ve said every year, our country’s future is in good hands with young people like these.
All of our scholarship winners are lauded for their academic and extra-curricular achievements as well as outstanding personal attributes. Ella Grace Benzel demonstrates all the above, with special emphasis on her perseverance and leadership qualities.
The Bermudian Springs High School senior has experienced setbacks and upheavals in her life. In 2020, in the midst of the Covid lockdown, Ella’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer and Ella was unable to visit her mother in the hospital after her surgery. Ella’s grandmother was diagnosed with breast cancer some years earlier, and although both women are now cancer free, Ella understands the necessity of monitoring her own health more than most of her peers must do.
When the Covid restrictions eased and schools were reopened, Ella returned to her two athletic loves, basketball and field hockey. As a junior she was chosen captain of the varsity basketball team. Unfortunately during that year, she tore her ACL in a game and went through surgery and nine months of physical therapy. She returned to become a starter in her senior year, and her coach wrote in his recommendation letter, “This demonstration of determination and willingness to fight through physical and mental discomfort was not only impressive but helped us win enough games to extend our season into Districts.” Ella was also selected as captain of her varsity field hockey team her senior year.
Ella’s academic achievements and talents earned her spots in both the National Honor Society and the National Art Honor Society. She served as treasurer for the FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) and was a member of the student council. When not in school or on the playing field, Ella also volunteered at such community events as youth basketball camps, carnivals, and the Lions Club Easter egg hunts.
As is the case with more than 50 per cent of our scholarship recipients, Ella is planning on a career in the medical field, in her case physical or occupational therapy. Her intended major is kinesiology, and she has been accepted to Penn State main campus. Having been through a major injury and lengthy recuperation, Ella experienced first-hand the miracles of physical therapy. She explained her career goals in her essay, “I want to help people to get better, help them feel like themselves again, and maybe help athletes like myself try and get through the long recovery process that is both mentally and physically challenging.”
In the several decades HOPE has been awarding scholarships to outstanding high school seniors whose lives have been impacted by cancer in their immediate family, never have we had an applicant whose career goal is professional pilot. Hereford High School senior Emerson Davis has been “addicted to driving things” since she was a little girl sitting on her father’s lap in the car and helping steer it up and down their driveway. She drove battery-powered mini cars, dirt bikes, a dune buggy she bought with her own money, and eventually, once she obtained her driver’s license, a stick-shift car. These days she is taking classes that allow her to fly three days a week, all in preparation for intensive schooling to earn her professional pilot license.
It seems as if all our scholarship winners have somehow been gifted with extra time in their days. How else to explain Emerson’s achievements both in school and beyond? AP and honors-level courses all four years; membership in the National Honor Society, the Spanish Honor Society, the National Technical Honor Society, and the Society of Women Engineers. Combine this with her extra-curricular activities as a varsity field hockey player; mentor for the Allied softball and bocce ball teams as a buddy to students with special needs; and membership in Athletes Serving Athletes, UNICEF, and the Hereford High School Safety Chapter. Currently Emerson is working toward the Girl Scout Gold Award, the highest honor in scouting, the culmination of her 13 years as a Girl Scout. And since middle school she has been volunteering at an animal sanctuary and the First Fruits Farm. Not to mention her jobs as babysitter, pet walker and sitter, and house sitter.
Looking back, Emerson said in her essay, she realized she was a “Daddy’s girl.” Her father coached her in field hockey and lacrosse, taught her to love the Ravens, rode dirt bikes with her, and took her fishing and crawfish catching in a nearby creek. That camaraderie was cut short for Emerson at age nine, when her father died a year after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer, leaving a bereft daughter as well as two other children and a grief-stricken wife. Emerson’s now single mother of three “lost the love of her life but never failed to keep pushing her kids to do their best, dream big, and is always someone we can lean on no matter what,” Emerson said in her essay.
Emerson’s dad was in the Air Force as a B52G Aircraft Crew Chief and then became a senior aviation safety inspector at the FAA. Hence, Emerson’s fascination with flying. She wrote in her essay that she was applying for the scholarship “because of the impact my dad had on me and the way he led me to my path of wanting to become a pilot.” “The cancer diagnosis has impacted my life by a great deal, but I do know that he is watching every little thing I do and smiling at all my little accomplishments in life.” As all who know Emerson would attest, these accomplishments are anything but little and will continue to grow as she does.
Three of our four scholarship winners will be pursuing careers in medicine. One of these, Dover Area High School senior Aiden Shepro, is planning to major in biochemistry and molecular biology at Penn State in preparation for medical school and ultimately a job as a radiation oncologist. Aiden’s dad was diagnosed with throat cancer when Aiden was eight and lost his battle a year later. Aiden wants to go into this career “in an effort to prevent this same tragedy from afflicting other families.” As Aiden wrote next in his scholarship application essay, “I think my biggest goal is to see a little boy hug his dad on the last day of therapy knowing that he will have that opportunity to grow up with him.”
This college double major should pose no problem for Aiden, who has earned As in AP Chemistry, Forensic Science, Honors Chemistry, Anatomy & Physiology, AP Biology, Honors Physics, and AP Calculus A & B. Actually, all of Aiden’s grades in all his classes over his four years of high school have been As. In addition to these academic achievements, Aiden has been the treasurer for his Class of 2024 all four years, has served on the school’s student council for four years and been its vice president the past three, qualified for the Varsity Club as a sophomore and the National Honor Society as a junior. As an Eagle Ambassador, another organization to which he has belonged for three years, he acts as a ‘big brother’ to freshmen to help them in their transition to high school.
Beyond the classroom Aiden has been playing soccer almost as long as he’s been around, 15 of his 18 years. He was captain of his soccer team in his junior and senior years. His youth soccer coach of six years described Aiden as a “selfless, team-oriented person and player, willing to play any position or do any job to help his team succeed.” Aiden also ran track and field and served as its captain his senior year.
Money has been tight in Aiden’s family and especially now, with his older brother recently graduating from college and Aiden about to enter. Aiden has been working at a local Giant for two years where he started as a cashier and was promoted to customer service representative. He plans on working there until he leaves for school.
Down the road Aiden intends to reimburse his mother for what she has to put toward his college tuition, and way down the road he would like to get her a “nice, small house closer to the shore where she can finally relax with a small dog after all of her sacrifices.”
Most of our scholarship candidates describe poignantly how cancer in a close family member has affected their lives. Each of their stories is unique and inspiring. A small percentage of these students are cancer survivors themselves, and their stories are even more amazing.
One of our winners this year is Keira Woods, a Susquehannock senior, and her story is almost impossible to imagine. Not only did Keira battle cancer for several years, but during this time her older brother was severely injured by a car while riding his bike and had to relearn to walk and talk, Keira’s mother’s parents both developed life-threatening conditions, and Keira’s mother herself was diagnosed with skin cancer.
Keira was diagnosed in 2018 with a rare form of leukemia and in 2022 had a bone marrow transplant which was her only hope. Here is the very moving, introductory paragraph of Keira’s scholarship application essay:
“My junior and senior years of high school were not what I expected, but it put me on the path to a career in nursing. While my friends were touring colleges, I was touring the transplant wing of the oncology unit at Penn State Hershey Children’s Hospital. While they were preparing for the SAT, I was preparing for my egg harvesting procedure by giving myself daily IVF injections in the hopes that one day I may be able to have children. Their summer plans included summer jobs and vacations to the beach. My 2023 summer plans were living in a hospital room with one window, hooked up to multiple IVs 24 hours a day, and isolated from everyone except my mom and dad, who took turns staying overnight with me.”
Keira’s younger sister was her bone marrow donor, and after months of pain and slow recovery, Keira was able to return to school full-time for her senior year. Despite the time missed in other years due to her illness, Keira will graduate near the top of her class as a member of the National Honor Society, as well as a cheerleader, a ‘Big Buddy’ to an elementary school child, president of the school’s ‘Unified Club’ which focuses on awareness of inclusion of those with learning and/or physical disabilities, a yearbook editor, and the Homecoming Queen.
Inspired by one of her oncology nurses, a young woman named Nicole, Keira plans to pursue a career in that field. As she wrote in her essay: “[Nicole] opened my eyes to a side of nursing that I had not considered. Combining her clinical knowledge and emotional intelligence, she was able to be the calm in my storm… What she did for me is precisely what I want to do for another child.”