Meringoff Family Foundation

The Meringoff Family Foundation hosted it first-ever MVP – Meringoff Victory Prize – essay competition, awarding $2,500 scholarships to eight college-bound high school seniors.  Each of our youth-serving grantee partners was invited to select two students to write an essay addressing that youth organization’s role in the youth writer’s development.  Twenty-one organizations submitted essays from 42 students, and Meringoff family members had the difficult job of winnowing and judging.  We ultimately selected students representing the Committee for Hispanic Children and Families, Eagle Academy, Epic Theatre Ensemble, GEMS, Go Project, Hemophilia Association of NY, NY Writers Coalition, and Rocking the Boat.  Since the overall quality of all essays received was so high, the family decided to award $500 scholarships to each of the 34 runners up. 

While the 42 essays we read were written from distinctly individual perspectives, collectively, they told the story of young people finding their way and realizing their full potential through the work of outstanding youth development organizations.  As a funder always looking to better understand the full impact of our grant dollars, the Meringoff Foundation found these essays to convey incredibly valuable and validating information.  In learning about the many ways our grantee partners work with the youth they serve, we also got to reward many of those young people for their past achievements while simultaneously making an early investment in their successes to come.